Stop the Drain! Plug 3 Leaks That Are Killing Your Chiropractic Practice Profits
Over the last ten years, I've worked with hundreds of chiropractors and holistic healthcare practices. I know that virtually all of their practices are leaking money in one way or another, and they didn't even know it.
But using our proven D.R.I.V.E.N. Framework, we can plug those leaks. Once that bucket has no leaks, we are ready to open up the floodgates to scale your practice.
In today's post, I will share with you three of the most common practice leaks I see so that you can plug them.
Leak No. 1: Missed Appointments
The first leaky bucket I want you to get absolutely obsessed over closing is missed appointments. We track and analyze a statistic called the “kept appointment percentage,” and if that's 90%, that means we have 10% missed appointments.
But I want you to get more specific than this. I want to break down the different appointment types so that we can track those to see which ones are the most leaky. This is breaking it down to:
New patient appointment types
Report of findings
Treatment appointments
Re-exam appointments
These appointment types allow us to see where we’re strong and where we’re weak. When we identify which one of those is the most leaky missed appointment, we start looking at the process behind how we can help keep those appointments, which comes down to agreements.
We have to make sure that we are making the right agreements with the patient on those appointments and not just assuming that they understand the importance or penalty for not making them. The benefit of making those appointments is they get to increase their knowledge, receive your services, and they actually get better.
The penalty for those appointments could be a real penalty for a missed appointment fee. But they’ll also slow down their progress, or they won’t get the information they could have gotten while at that appointment.
One of the biggest mistakes that I see in practices that drive this leaky bucket is that the provider or the clinician has not communicated clearly with the patient about how vital the frequency of those appointments is.
There's a process in place that if an appointment is missed or they can't make it, there's a missed appointment makeup process that we immediately default to that the front desk knows how to take action on that missed appointment. This way, the patient isn't surprised by our proactive approach to keeping their treatment on track.
When we have clear agreements with our patients, and they understand these appointments' true benefits and penalties, they will have so much more compliance. You’ll see those kept appointment percentages skyrocket.
Leak No. 2: Not Measuring And Fixing
This is the second leak I see in most practices: not measuring and fixing what percent of your work you’re collecting. If you went to a steakhouse and ordered a $50 steak, and the dinner total came to $100 with sides and beverages, you now have a $100 bill.
But what would happen if you only paid $58 of that bill and said, “Thank you so much! Have a great day!” and you tried to walk out of that steakhouse, you would have people clamoring over you to make sure you paid your bill. Restaurants can't survive on a 58% collection rate, so I want to make sure you're not in the same boat.
You see, our work has to bring in the revenue to cover our bills. We need to pay our team members what they deserve – good salaries, incentives, and bonuses – so they can continue providing excellent care. We also need to cover the costs of running the practice, like rent, utilities, and equipment.
You went to school for a long time, and your value and the systems you've built are incredible. So, are you measuring the work volume that you're doing and comparing that to what you've collected? Unfortunately, many practices only collect 58% - 70% of their work.
No wonder there's no money left to hire a new team at the end of the day, even though you're getting busier. No wonder there's no money left over to pay a bonus system. No wonder there's no money left to go on a vacation with your family.
I don't want this situation for you. So, you need to analyze your processes for your financial systems. You need to compare that against what you're collecting. We call your services adjusted production. Production is your fees for the services. Every service code in your practice has a service fee, and adjusted means that for some insurance companies, you've adjusted the rate based on their contractual obligations.
You need to make sure those systems are in your EHR so that when you run the production report, you're looking at the adjusted numbers so that you are clear if you’re collecting the right amount of money that is equivalent to the amount of work that you're doing.
You should review the fee schedules with some of these contracted insurance companies to ensure they're fair and not ripping you off. If you haven't noticed, we have seen a steep decline in these fee schedules, and a lot of times, you're just signing these and agreeing to them and not truly reviewing them.
I can't tell you how good it was to fire some of these insurance companies because it literally cost me more to process the claim than what we even got paid on the claim.
So make sure you're plugging this hole. Make sure you're collecting the value of your work. It’s vital in helping you have the profits to scale your practice.
Leak No. 3: Reappointment Rate
The last leaky bucket that I see out there is systemic in our profession – the reappointment rate. One of the cool things about our data-driven dashboards is that we can measure the percentage of your patients that leave with a next appointment.
Other professions have done a phenomenal job with this. In fact, when I go to the dentist, they always schedule my next cleaning. Or, if I need some dental work, I'm scheduled for that next appointment before I leave.
Even if I don't have my calendar on me, or I don't have my schedule, or I don't know that far in the future, they always say, hey, let's go ahead and get on the books. That way, you at least get a reminder. And if you need to adjust it, we can take care of moving that appointment.
That's way easier than how many patients you’ve missed for months or even years, and all of a sudden, you're woken up in the middle of the night with their name on your brain because you're like, holy cow! I haven't seen them for a year!
That's what we don't want to have in your practice. Your team should ensure every patient has a next appointment before leaving. This is what the reappointment rate is all about. We want that reappointment rate to be 90% - 95% of your patients so that they're coming back on schedule, whether that's for a care plan, their wellness care, their membership plan, or whatever the doctor recommends in their recommended frequency of treatment.
If you plug these three holes, your practice will grow by 20%. Challenge me on that. Start doing this, and then come to our free Facebook group, “The Data Driven Practice,” and tell me how much you've grown because this will transform your practice.
And if you want to know more ways to grow your practice, come join us for our FREE Practice Profits Challenge, where we're going to dive way deeper and give you even more value for free.
It's 3 days (just 90 minutes a day) of diving deep into how to run a data-driven practice and working smarter, not harder, without causing you to be chained to patient care, burnout, or work 80+ hour weeks ever again! I will see you inside the challenge!
