Before implementing a chiropractic billing and practice management system, it is important to examine all of aspects of your practice from an efficiency and cost perspective. The purpose of this article is to provide some insight into how a practice should be examined before implementing a practice management and billing system.

Financial Analysis- First, you should take a look at your practice from a financial perspective to determine if there are areas where the financial performance of your practice can be improved. Here are examples of the areas you should research and the types of questions you should ask:

1. How timely is your submittal of claims? Are claims immediately submitted after a patient is seen or is there a time lag between when a claim is submitted and when the patient is seen?

2. What is the rejection rate of claims submitted that could be remedied by better coding?

3. Are you fully maximizing the reimbursement rate for claims? If not, why not?

4. Of the available patient hours in your practice to see patients, what percent of available hours are you actually seeing patients? How could this be improved?

5. Are you adequately controlling overhead costs? For example, through more efficient management, can you reduce the number of staff hours required to operate your practice?

Operational Analysis. As a first step in operational analysis, workflow diagrams should be developed. For example, a flow chart of patient processing should be drawn showing what happens with an existing patient from the beginning of the visitors to the end of the visit. Other workflow charts that should be developed include how clerical procedures are handled such as processing of a new patient, submittal of claims, and patient recordkeeping.

After the flow chart is developed, the following key questions should be answered:

1. Is this step necessary or can it be eliminated?

2. What is the cost of this step? For example, considering the salary of the person performing the step, what does this step cost? Could the step be performed more cost effectively? If yes, what is the most cost effective approach?

3. Could this step be performed more efficiently? If so, what would be a better way to perform this step?

Important to note is that buying and installing a chiropractic practice and billing system is not a "magic answer" for improved profitability and efficiency. Of course, any good software package will result in improvements, but you will not realize the full benefits of a chiropractic billing and practice management system unless you examine your current practices and procedures first and determine how you might improve those areas. Careful analysis and planning before implementing a chiropractic practice billing and management system will provide the most benefit to you.
There are many benefits of installing a good chiropractic practice management and billing system including reduced audit risk, improve management of receivables, reduction in missed appointments, and maximization of revenue. All of these benefits and more can be optimally achieved with a close examination of your practice first.




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