Three Key Compliance Skills for Physical Therapy Practice Management in a BestPT Training Webinar

February 27, 2015/in Client Testimonials, Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy Billing, Physical Therapy Billing Network Members, Physical Therapy Billing Webinars, Physical Therapy Compliance, Physical Therapy Documentation, Physical Therapy News /by George Konold

Industry leaders unveil tested strategies to increase office compliance and save health care practices time and money in this short webinar.

BestPT’s new short webinar reveals three effective methods to increase compliance in the office, thus saving physical therapy practice managers time and money. The webinar is available online and can be watched or listened to at any time – request access below.

“Ninety healthcare providers were charged with compliance violations reaching $260 million in billing in May 2014. A growing number of practices are subjected to audits and penalties.” says Reuven Lirov, Chief Practice Growth Officer at Vericle. Physical therapy practice owners too struggle to maintain compliant practices against a tangled web of regulations from insurance companies, the government, Medicare, and Medicaid.

According to Lirov, mistakes and oversights in the office are a regular occurrence in most healthcare practices. “Physical therapy practice managers face severe problems posed by compliance issues such as the increased risk of audit failure, growing compliance complexity, and lack of time to learn and implement new procedures based upon new rules.” says Lirov.

Lack of compliance is a serious issue that can lead to substantial loss of revenue and fines. For example, a practice might see 100 patients a day, or approximately 25,000 patients a year. Suppose just 0.4% of those visits (100 visits) are undocumented. Each of those unbilled visits would be marked as a “fail” in the audit, with a resulting penalty of $10,000 per line item — or $1 million in audit penalties.

“Better compliance liberates physical therapy practice owners from worrying about fines and audits, and lets them get back to treating patients. “ says Lirov. “Physical therapy EMR software helps practice owners stay compliant and grow. Our average clients have seen substantial growth in their practices including an average revenue growth of 186%, patient growth of 141%, and patient lifespan increase of 86%.”

According to Dr. Amy Vant, DPT, BestPT has built in safeguards that help maintain a more compliant office and simplify physical therapy practice management. “As therapists, we are continually looking out for the best interests of our patients. We don’t really have the time to review our daily notes, evaluations, and billing documents to ensure that we have checked all of the right boxes and marked all of the right codes. We need a double-checker because we certainly don’t have time to do it. With Best PT, I have found that everything I need in an evaluation or daily note is available and the system even cues me to testing items that I may have forgotten.” says Vant in her article about physical therapy EMR onboarding experience.

Physical Therapy EMR Compliance

Physical therapy practice managers face severe problems posed by compliance issues such as the increased risk of audit failure, growing compliance complexity, and lack of time to learn and implement new procedures based upon new rules

Continuously increasing compliance requirements and lack of time do not excuse physical therapy practice owner during a practice audit. A short thirty minute webinar teaches the three most important practice management skills to save a physical therapy practice and avoid audit failure penalties. The webinar includes a demonstration of bestPT physical therapy practice management software. It contains automated features to discover the most frequent documentation errors that lead to compliance issues, such as undocumented visits, unsigned notes, and late billing. The software is also browser-based, so it can be changed as the law changes without inconveniencing the practice owner. Click here to sign up for the free webinar and find out more information.

About bestPT and Billing Dynamix, LLC
bestPT by Billing Dynamix, LLC is a comprehensive cloud-based Practice Management system that includes intuitive EMR, effective billing, scheduling, and powerful yet simple workflow management. Save documentation time and keep legible and compliant documents. Automate claims and leverage over 2.5 million coding rules spanning 2,500 practice-years of experience. Reduce administrative overhead and foster staff teamwork. bestPT is the ONLY PT clinic solution that reduces administrative time by 70% compared to industry averages, GUARANTEED. Complete practice management consulting and a rich array of integrated products and services round out bestPT product and service packages. Register for a private Demo+, and review our industry-leading guarantee at https://bestptbilling.com

Dr. Amy Vant, DPT

Understanding Through Images and Animations

September 15, 2014/in Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy Billing, Physical Therapy Patient Education, Physical Therapy practice management, Physical Therapy Software /by Tom Jorno

tablet

Plugging In

Will Shannon find her patient education solution in the cloud?

“Aren’t we the modern family!” Mike laughed, looking around the room. His wife was at her laptop and he was at his, their youngest daughter was playing a game on a tablet, and the other kids were texting friends on their phones. The TV was on, too, so there were more screens active than people.

Shannon looked at him doubtfully. “What do you mean?”

“Look at all these screens! We’re all plugged into our devices — together in the room, but each of us hooked up to our own electronic stuff.”

“You’re right. But I think I might have made a breakthrough on the patient education issue.” Shannon scooted closer and showed Mike her screen. “See these 3-D images and animations?”

The older kids came close to see. “Awesome!” their son said.

“It’s awesome, all right — the largest library of 3-D animations of medical conditions anywhere, and there are lots of exercise and rehab images, too.”

“So,” Mike said, “the idea is that you can show these to patients and they’ll understand their conditions better?”

“Their conditions, the treatments we want to use, the exercises they should be doing at home — everything! When they understand, they’ll be more likely to follow through.”

“Also,” their son put in, “you’ll be the coolest PT in town. They could make a game out of these.”

Shannon laughed. “They don’t have a game, but we can email them a custom report so they have the information they need at home in between visits. Plus, it’s browser-based, so we can use it all through the practice. That means we’ll all be giving them a consistent message, so there’ll be less chance of confusion — and less chance that they’ll feel they have to go somewhere else for information.”

“This is impressive,” Mike agreed. “I can see that this could be a selling point for you.”

“It’s also integrated with practice management software, so it can be part of our regular workflow, not more work for us.”

“It makes sense. This is clearly a good use of technology. Now maybe we as a family should unplug and do something together.”

Will Shannon find her patient education solution in the cloud?

Disclaimer: For HIPAA compliance, all characters appearing in this post are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons or actual events is purely coincidental.

Physical Therapy Practice Management | Direct Mail Marketing Campaign

August 6, 2014/3 Comments/in Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy Billing, Physical Therapy Dream Practice, Physical Therapy practice management, Physical Therapy Practice Marketing, Physical Therapy profitability /by Steve Messineo, PT, DPT

Why Headlines and Graphics are Important in Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign

By Steve Messineo, DPT, Owner, YourBizSuccessCoach.com

Have you ever sent a marketing letter to a local physician promoting your practice in the hope of seeing more patient referrals from that physician? Â If so, what did you do to the letter to help it grab the doctorâ€™s attention?

If you are like most physical therapy clinic owners, chances are you didnâ€™t do much to it. Most likely, you wrote a â€œDear Dr. So and Soâ€ letter telling him or her all about how your practice is ideal for his or her patients. No headlines, no eye catching graphics or pictures. Just a â€œplain Janeâ€ letter.

Unfortunately, physicians get enough of these letters from other PTâ€™s and other vendors looking to promote their products or services. It is enough to put them asleep – something they canâ€™t afford to be doing when treating their patients. Â So, more often than not, these type of letters get filed in the TRASH without the message about your practice getting through.

Donâ€™t feel bad – most physical therapists are not taught effective marketing techniques in school to promote themselves and their businesses. Â But, there is hope. Â There are plenty of sources for PT clinic owners to get the training they need to be effective marketers – more about this later.

If you have had some marketing experience, then you know that implementing attention grabbing headlines and graphics/pictures that accentuate the message you are delivering in your letters to physicians, is the way to go if you are looking to convert physicians to consistent referral sources for your practice.

At the same time, there are strategies behind creating an effective headline and using appropriate graphics. Â How do you learn these strategies? Â Well, one way is to look up marketing courses for PT clinic owners, pay for one, and go through the education process.

The other is to attend my upcoming webinar where I will share outside of the box marketing strategies that will help increase the number of patient referrals to your practice.

If you would like to attend the webinar, â€œOutside of the Box Strategies for Marketing to MDâ€™sâ€, you can register for it by clicking a button below or above.

Physical Therapy Practice Management | Getting Patient Referrals

July 30, 2014/in Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy Billing, Physical Therapy practice management, Physical Therapy Practice Marketing, Physical Therapy Software /by Steve Messineo, PT, DPT

Getting Patient Referrals “It’s all Who You Know and How Well You Know Them.”

By Steve Messineo, DPT, Owner, YourBizSuccessCoach.com

Physical Therapy and other health care clinic owners are always looking for ways to get more patient referrals from the variety of referral sources out there. In this article, I am going to specifically talk about getting referrals from MD’s.

Getting physicians to consistently refer to your practice, especially if they do not know you very well, is a HUGE challenge for any clinician who is unskilled in the ways of sales and marketing (which means the majority of people in our profession, likely including you – just saying.)

Now, if you are skilled in sales and marketing in addition to being a healthcare professional, then you have a BIG advantage over your competition and you probably have no problems getting MD’s to send patients your way.

But if you are not, then read on as I am going to tell you how you can do so with a little consistency and persistence. What you need to do is get to know your potential source REALLY well.

Now you may be thinking “How am I going to do that? The MD’s I am trying to connect with are never available for me to do so.” That may be true, so you have to find another way to get to know them.

There are several different ways you can do so. I will not be able to cover them all here, but I will give you a few examples.

The first is to create a survey of 8-10 questions where you ask the doctor HOW YOU AS A PRACTITIONER CAN HELP TO MAKE THEIR LIFE EASIER with respect to treating patients. Then ask some additional questions about them like “What do you like about being a physician?” or “what is your favorite hobby or activity outside of work?’

Show them you have a personal interest in them and in helping them and you should see a couple of good responses to those surveys. Then follow-up with a thank you and a mention about something they shared with you.

Another way is to get to know their “gatekeepers” when you visit their offices. I mean REALLY GET TO KNOW THEM and show that you believe they have a very important role. Make them feel good about your visit. It doesn’t take much effort.

As you develop a relationship with these gatekeepers over time, you will find they are much more willing to help you to get to know the doctor as well. For example, you may ask them to let you know when the doctor’s birthday is and what kind of coffee he likes.

Then you send the doctor a birthday card along with a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts gift card. Imagine his/her surprise receiving a card from you out of the blue on his/her birthday.

He/she is going to suspect someone in his/her office told you when his/her birthday was and when he/she goes to find out who, that person is going to tell the doctor what a great person you are. This could go a long way to helping you establish more of a relationship with that MD.

My point of all this is, as with any business, success comes to those who truly get to know their customers well and who make the greatest effort to take care of their customers. Doctors in a way are your customers. Treat them like you treat your patients and you’ll have more referrals than you can deal with.

If you want to learn more about effectively connecting with physicians, then register for my upcoming webinar on August 20th called “Outside of the Box Marketing Strategies to Get More Referrals from MD’s.” I’ll show you how to set up an effective marketing campaign to MDs that will drive in more patients for your clinic.

Who do you know to help you attract more referrals from physicians?

Physical Therapy Practice Management | Outside The Box Strategies

July 23, 2014/5 Comments/in Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy Billing, Physical Therapy practice management, Physical Therapy Practice Marketing, Physical Therapy Software /by Steve Messineo, PT, DPT

Get What You Want for Your Clinic – Here’s How…

By Steve Messineo, DPT, Owner, YourBizSuccessCoach.com

In the last two weeks I have had two Physical Therapy clinic owners who are new clients tell me that they want a different type of patient population than the type they are getting.

In both cases, they get a lot of Medicaid patient referrals. This is bad for 2 reasons: 1) Medicaid reimbursement is terrible, and 2) Medicaid patients are terrible about keeping their appointments.

Both clinic owners want more private insurance patients to come in. So when I asked them if they are marketing to doctors or companies who can refer more private insurance patients, they both said “No”.

In fact, both clinic owners weren’t doing any marketing whatsoever! Ummm – f you really want something, then you need to let people know what you are looking for AND how it will benefit them when you get it.

That is the whole idea of marketing. Yet many clinic owners, like my two clients, will tell me the marketing they have done doesn’t work so well OR they don’t have enough time to do marketing.

Yeah – So what they are really saying is they have never tested and tweaked their marketing enough to make it successful. Or they are saying “I don’t have enough time to let people know what I want and put more money in my pocket”.

Now, I am kidding here a bit. The fact is, physical therapists are not taught marketing strategies when they are in school getting their degrees. Most clinic owners have to figure it out for themselves once they open a practice.

Like treating a patient, there is a science and strategy behind a good marketing campaign. It is not something you learn overnight. Like your treatment skills, it takes practice to become good at it.

Unfortunately, most clinic owners don’t take the time to do so because it is easier to find other things to do that they are more comfortable with. Let me ask you, were you always comfortable when you were in PT school?

Probably not. If you don’t have a good marketing plan for your clinic and have not acquired the skills needed to be a good at marketing your practice, then it is time for you to get out of your comfort zone again and learn marketing.

It will make a huge difference in the type of patients you get into your clinic(s) and will most definitely increase your bottom line if you make the effort to do so.

What are some out of the box strategies you use for attracting more referrals from physicians?

ICD-10 | Five Building Blocks | bestPT Webinar | Q&A

March 31, 2014/1 Comment/in Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy Billing, Physical Therapy Billing Webinars, Physical Therapy Compliance, Physical Therapy Documentation, Physical Therapy Dream Practice, Physical Therapy practice management, Webinar Q&A /by George Konold

As you get your practice ready for the ICD-10 changeover, you are bound to have questions regarding documentation and compliance. To help you get the answers you need, we have compiled all questions that were asked during our recent webinar â€œICD-10 | Five Building Blocks,â€ along with the presenter’s responses. Feel free to add any new questions in the comment section below.

Q: Where can I find CMS guidelines in written form?

A: On CMS.gov, click on the Medicare link and you will find a link for both local and national coverage determinations.

Q: When can I start finding ICD-10 codes within your software and submitting them?

A: Our software already has all the ICD-10 codes listed; we are building the crosswalk now. We recently completed ICD-10 testing with Medicare, and were successful with our front-end edits. We are looking to have this available to practices by June, to really start testing and crosswalking. At this point, payers are not accepting claims in ICD-10; they are not coming over until October 1, but we are testing with payers and clearinghouses directly.

Enjoy this ICD-10 webinar?

4 Steps to Keep Your Staff from Fighting | Webinar

February 13, 2014/in Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy practice management, Physical Therapy profitability /by George Konold

Your practice success depends on your staff teamwork. Learn how to to automate staff teamwork problem identification and solve policy/procedure problems.

Learning Objectives:

Define effective staff teamwork
How to measure staff productivity
How to promote staff autonomy and foster teamwork

This Live Webinar meets the criteria of the Professional Association of Health Care Office Management and is approved for 0.5 CEU(s).

ICD-10: 100x more complicated | Webinar

January 17, 2014/in Continuing Education Webinars, Physical Therapy Billing, Physical Therapy Billing Webinars, Physical Therapy Compliance /by George Konold

Start the new year by preparing your practice for ICD-10. Learn the necessary changes you’ll have to make in order to avoid a drop in your billing performance.Â

Â Objectives:

Billing and Collections: avoid denied claims and underpayments
Compliance: reduce audit risk

This continuing education webinarÂ meets the criteria of theÂ Professional Association of Health Care Office Management and is approvedÂ for 0.5 CEU(s).

Three Key Compliance Skills for Physical Therapy Practice Management in a BestPT Training Webinar

Industry leaders unveil tested strategies to increase office compliance and save health care practices time and money in this short webinar.

Understanding Through Images and Animations

Plugging In

Physical Therapy Practice Management | Direct Mail Marketing Campaign

Why Headlines and Graphics are Important in Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign

Physical Therapy Practice Management | Getting Patient Referrals

Getting Patient Referrals “It’s all Who You Know and How Well You Know Them.”

Physical Therapy Practice Management | Outside The Box Strategies

Get What You Want for Your Clinic – Here’s How…

ICD-10 | Five Building Blocks | bestPT Webinar | Q&A

4 Steps to Keep Your Staff from Fighting | Webinar

ICD-10: 100x more complicated | Webinar

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