Hey guys, welcome to Podiatry. Practice Mastery.
Don here. Want to share about a little
experience. I don't know if you guys know on
the side. I don't know if it's on the
side, but I, I use a Thena for my EMR and occasionally I get
asked to help people with their, what their EMR.
And that's why I kind of put all the templates together that I
use, and I kind of give them out, let people use them and
things like that, they're all, I'll put them underneath.
Eat this episode. If you want basically it's a
Google Google drive folder with all the templates and things
like that that you might find beneficial.
And and then I did a few. There's a few videos that I've
done as well on that topic but I was talking to someone the other
day. She's kind of a lot of newer
practitioners. She's been in practice for about
seven or eight years. And kind of similar I have two
kids, she has four kids and she is switching from a Private
Practice Group to her own thing. And she had a lot of questions
about Athena. And I just because other people
might have these questions, I wanted to go over those one of
the main questions was about billing and do you need your own
billing person in my experience? Some of the emrs are trying to
include their own billers and we do not, we have we still have
our own in-house billers. That we use.
We thought that by switching to what some of these emrs that
they would do all the billing for us and I want to clarify
they will for like an extra percentage point or something
like that. I think her initial percentage
point is like eight percent and I don't know billing is included
with some to figure that out but if you think about it if they're
really good it might be good. But if they're doing every
single specialty it's a little bit more challenging and it's
probably better to have in-house billing and what I mean by it.
House, doesn't mean you have to be at your office, they can even
be a virtual person. Because, in our office, we have
one in-house Miller, and we have one person that she works from
Florida and she works virtually because she can log into our
Athena, and she can do all the billing and pushes things out
very, very well. Her name is Jess and the reason
we do that is we found that doing it in-house.
There's more of an incentive to run after the claims.
So for example, if things aren't covered They get kicked back,
we're more incentivized to do that versus maybe someone else.
And, you know, because also, you have to look at what the value
and time value is, because within Athena or any any of
these billing companies they get a percentage, right?
So you're already paying a percentage for your EMR and then
you're also paying another percentage for your billing
software. So it, so for the biller, so it
kind of goes up, we don't pay a percentage to them, we just pay
them like their salary or whatever their their amount is
that Get paid. So another thought maybe as I'm
just thinking about it is the same way where I'm starting to
use a scribe. To do.
Like, scribing you could even find someone I guess you could
train someone from another country to do that.
As long as they kind of know what to do when you have a
training, a training process for that.
So that was one of the questions was, does it come included?
Another question that she had was do, they get all your
credentialing and this is what kind of a little I guess snafu
that happened. Is she thought that they came on
before you got credentialed and really they don't help at all
with credentialing. I don't think any emrs do you
Pay someone to do credentialing or you can just do all the hard
work to switch. Everything over to your new
address, and your nose, and your new insurance wherever you're
going to be at then that, and that's what's really delaying.
This this doctor that starting her own practice.
Is that aspect? So you have to remember, if you
are switching from one practice to another, you have to switch
all your all your billing information and that the third
thing that we're kind of arguing back and forth about not
arguing, but just talking about is a dislike that I have.
I think it's not just specific to to Athena.
I think it's any Mr. Unless they can do a carve-out is that there
are a lot of cash to pay things that we do in our office.
For example or talking carry Flex on a fix Shockwave
Orthotics, things like that. And that's a substantial amount
amnio substantial amount in the office and and even though
they're not billing it through the Clearing House, they're
still getting a percentage of it.
So this is kind of one of our qualms with an item and found to
anyone that kind of does a carve-out, it would make sense.
They would do a carve out of that.
Meaning all the, I don't know the stuff you sell, you would,
you could just have for yourself.
So that was another. Another question that we were
talking about last night on the phone.
And, and I guess the, and we're talking a little bit about like,
online scheduling. She asked why I did only new
patients via the website, not the follow-up patients in the
reason for that is on our website.
If you go there, which is Central Mass Podiatry.com, you
can make an appointment for a new page.
Patient. But the follow-ups you can't.
And the reason for that is in our schedule, we have new
appointment blocks, depending on the day, there's like three or
four in the morning and then three or four in the afternoon
and those are fixed. But the follow-ups, the follow
patients, don't always know where to schedule depending on
the procedure. So for example, if they schedule
and they they're seeing for one thing and they don't really know
what it's for. Let's say they have to come in
for a shock wave and they don't know what Shockwave.
They're just making a follow-up appointment and they're in
there. There's always already two or
three Shockwave there or something else like that, or
they want to come in for a loony line.
They No, that, that is for a medical assistant appointment
and not for a doctor appointment.
So that's the reason we don't do follow-up, I guess another
option. We could allow them to do
follow-up, and then just call everyone, okay?
And then the last thing which she actually helped me with this
other doctor is verifying coverage for all DME fryer.
We don't have a really good system for that.
I want to be clear, maybe I should, I just don't, but I
liked the idea that she gave and what it was is is you you
certainly for all new patients, you check and then you put that
in a little sheet and you save that in the EMR in a certain
section under like documents so you can make a section for like
DME checking and or something like that.
So you, at least know when they come in, you can check that what
their deductible is, how much of that they've met thing, things
like that. So, those are kind of the, the
highlights of our talk. I'd love to know what you guys
do, if you check coverage for every patient, if you have a
really good system, Where do you put that in your EMR?
Do you put it somewhere? Do you like do a PDF?
Or if you have like a Word document and kind of what your
workflow is? Let me know.
Send me an email at Don at Podiatry, practice Master e.com
and then let me know any like I'm other thoughts or things
that are working for you. One thing I was I did an
interview yesterday from it's called a sub kit s UB ki ta Ki T
and what that is it's a subscription service.
I don't think it's gonna really work for.
Podiatry of trying to figure out a way that would work for
Orthotics. I've been kind of thinking about
this for a while but their whole thought was if a patient's let's
say they get the Orthotics and then like four messages.
For example, it's not covered by insurance so some are covered
others aren't most people aren't.
So they get it for 550. We, you know, and then they pay
us monthly for that. Let's say it's like 15 bucks, or
20 bucks a month and included with the monthly thing.
They could they They get some type of like an insurance or
outgrowth or something else that that they could get in addition
to it. I still like this idea of a
thought I could subscribe button but the thing is, let's say they
stopped paying how are you going to get the rest of the money,
right? If they stop paying for that
subscription, another way that might be a little bit better and
I'm just kind of throwing it out.
Here is doing not so much a subscription, but having a
insurance plan and I'm just calling Get an insurance plan.
So instead of the orthotic company ensuring the Orthotics
you could ensure the Orthotics and my thought is let's say that
cost them the insurance let's say a cost them a dollar a month
okay I'm just throwing out a dollar a month.
The main reason for the insurance plan isn't so much for
the insurance. It's more as a way that we can
keep getting paid. Let's say a dollar a month or
something else, like that are five dollars a month but more
importantly that then we can Market other.
Stu these patients. So if they have your, I don't
know your orthotic Club. Okay?
We could make an orthotic Club in our office or maybe it is
this not or thought a company specific.
So all the orthotic companies could could participate in this.
And then with this, they would have, let's say, protection
against theft. You would have protection
against breaking protection against.
I don't know other things and then you could add add other
benefits, kind of as, as add-ons, that we get their
monthly. Letter about Orthotics, they
would get there. I don't know.
Healthy healthy orthotic Club tips about foot foot issues.
So basically it's a way that the podiatrist could use to get in
front of their patients more frequently.
It's almost like a, you're charging them and then they're
automatically getting a newsletter that's specific to
the podiatrist sent directly to them.
Let's say once a month or once a quarter, so I think that's kind
of a neat anyway. Do it.
And the other good idea that some kid had was this thing
about, they have this thing called go solo Geo Sol.
Oh, and what I liked about that is they sent me an e-mail.
You may have got it from them as well, or maybe not, maybe
because I'm on their list. But the neat idea about go solo
is, they send out basically, it's a Google form and they ask
you to put your information in there.
So if you look up, go solo.com. And the neat thing is is they
say well, we're going to ask you these questions.
It's about your business and we are going to publish this on our
website and we're going to put backlinks to your site's and all
your socials. So the neat thing is is it's
providing a benefit to me, okay? Or other entrepreneurs.
Basically, this is for entrepreneurs, it gets their
name out there and it also is going to give good content for
their blog. So the kind of the conversation
in my head is twofold one within Podiatry.
Practice Mastery all these That I've interviewed or companies, I
could do a Google doc or a Google form, they could fill it
out with their socials. I could do backlinking and put
it in a blog section under, I don't know, the best of Podiatry
companies, it would be good for them.
They would get backlinks and I would get more content for the
blog and you could also do that with practitioners.
So for practitioners, they could share their best tips or
something like that or even within my Central Mass Podiatry
website. You could do the same thing.
With local businesses kind of as a, you know, as a kind of a
thank you giving backlinks to the local shoe store, physical
therapy places, other people that are I'm already referring
to, but it would it would kind of create Goodwill for them and
then they could, they could use this in sometime somehow in
their marketing. So I just thought that was a
kind of a neat approach. It's a weight one to produce
content for your blog. It's also a way to give Goodwill
to other people that need that. By giving them backlinks.
Anyway, those are the ideas for now.
I'd love to know your thoughts on that.
If you guys haven't downloaded the the patient, presentations
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Okay, thanks guys.