A good chiropractic billing and practice management system supplies comprehensive support for all aspects of patient processing and record handling. Such a system should be easy to use, be oriented to providing a high level of service for interacting with the patient, and should reduce paperwork and manual processing as much as possible. The system should also have controls, flags, warnings, and built in processing methods to reduce the chance of an audit- an often costly and time consuming process for a chiropractic practice.

Besides that Chiropractic Billing Software (CBS) can help at the front desk of a practice where patients check in, there are huge benefits at the examining table. In fact, for existing patients, the front desk can be completely eliminated and the patient can be handled by the doctor right at the adjusting table. Bottom line, if implemented correctly, the chiropractic office can be made totally paperless.

How does it work? Quite simply information is directly recorded at the table. From that table the following information can be entered or viewed/accessed:

· Patient images which can be compared period to period to note treatment progress
· Word documents can also be attached and uploaded for easy reference
· Intake documents that have been scanned for electronic access
· Compliance measurement to see if the patient is complying with the recommended visits. If he isn't, this can be discussed with the patient to encourage more regular visits- this improves revenue for the practice.
· Visit history
· Scheduling of the next visit
· Appointment types can also be recorded. In addition, visits that are cash or insurance can be noted.
· Start and end date of the care plan
· Diagnosis and procedure codes

As information is entered, a good billing system also flashes warning such as state or payor related, warnings about problems with procedure codes, and warnings if a modifier or diagnosis link is needed. A good system will also automatically check to make sure documentation supports the billing level of coding on a claim. The system should also allow for the SOAP note to be broken down into subject, objective activities and should allow for recording daily living activities. The system should also allow the doctor to enter his own narrative about a patient visit with the system automatically documenting that.

Another huge benefit of a chiropractic billing and practice management systems is that information entered by the doctor at the adjusting table automatically bills and submits claims for the visit. This is a huge time saver, insures accuracy, and also speed in processing claims. Of course, the system would allow for exception processing such as allowing the doctor to flag visits for later updating by the doctor.

The best practice billing and management systems are not those built primarily by programmers but, rather, those systems that have chiropractors, compliance officers, compliance attorneys, physical therapists and other experts heavily involved in the design and development of a system. Involving a programmer primarily risks the development of a system that isn't designed for the realities of a chiropractic office.




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