Practice Management

For CAs: Responsibilities of an Administrative Assistant

By Frank M. Painter|October 18, 2009|Chiropractic Assistant, Education, Practice Management|

For CAs: Responsibilities of an Administrative Assistant

We would all like to thank Dr. Richard C. Schafer, DC, PhD, FICC for his lifetime commitment to the profession. In the future we will continue to add materials from RC’s copyrighted books for your use.

Enjoy Chapter 7 from Dr. Schafer’s best-selling book:

“The Chiropractic Assistant”

These materials are provided as a service to our profession. There is no charge for individuals to copy and file these materials. However, they cannot be sold or used in any group or commercial venture without written permission from ACAPress.

Chapter 7: Responsibilities of an Administrative Assistant

Proper scheduling and planning help any office function smoothly with less possibility of omitting necessary actions. The doctor in charge will identify each assistant’s duties and functions and discuss her responsibility for the performance of each assigned task. During her initial orientation and training, these functions may be subdivided into procedural steps necessary.

Task plans and work schedules eliminate the confusion of whom should perform a specific duty. It eliminates the question, “What do I do next?” Work schedules based on good planning eliminate the need to work beyond expected hours, except for rare emergency situations. Keep in mind, however, that a plan is not a permanent thing. As conditions change, the doctor must revise schedules, duties, and responsibilities to reflect changes. Flexibility is a necessary qualification for a chiropractic assistant.

Patient handling and patient control are the two major factors determining the success or failure of any practice. As professional competence should be taken for granted, patient satisfaction makes the difference in success or failure. This one factor determines a high or low patient return and a high or low referral rate.

This chapter describes common duties of an administrative assistant. In both the professional and business world, however, specific job descriptions vary to meet the needs of management.

OVERVIEW

It is frequently stated that the doctor should not be required to do anything in his office that an assistant can do as well or better. Valuable clinical time would be wasted if the doctor had to answer routine telephone calls, make appointments, supervise patient flow, send out notices and reminders, type letters, make billings, file records, and attend to the various other duties necessary to administer and manage the business side of a practice. To be efficient in his profession, the doctor must delegate much authority and responsibility for many office details to his assistant(s) so that his time will be used optimally in doing that which he has been specially prepared—helping the sick to get well and helping the healthy stay well.

The extent of delegated administrative responsibility depends largely on the nature of the practice itself, the assistant’s experience and training, and the size of the administrative staff. In a small solo practice with one assistant, the assistant will be required to assume several small roles. In a large office with several assistants, the number of duties will be reduced, but their scope will be expanded for each assistant.

Review the complete Chapter (including sketches and Tables) at the ACAPress website

4

For New DCs: Patient Education and Motivation

By Frank M. Painter|October 14, 2009|Education, Practice Management|

For New DCs: Patient Education and Motivation

The Chiro.Org Blog

We would all like to thank Dr. Richard C. Schafer, DC, PhD, FICC for his lifetime commitment to the profession. In the future we will continue to add materials from RC’s copyrighted books for your use.

This is Chapter 7 from RC’s best-selling book:

“Developing A Chiropractic Practice”

These materials are provided as a service to our profession. There is no charge for individuals to copy and file these materials. However, they cannot be sold or used in any group or commercial venture without written permission from ACAPress.

Chapter Seven: PATIENT EDUCATION AND MOTIVATION

We described in the last chapter how an individual who is sick, in pain, or worried must be dealt with in a special atmosphere of understanding and consideration to lessen the anxiety involved. When health is lost, the sense of security is lost, and the person is operating on the basic motivational levels of self-preservation and threatened personal safety.

Patient education and motivation are two important solutions to this problem, and these are the primary subjects of this chapter. Professionally, these disciplines begin with and end with the professional services offered. Other major topics addressed include motivational communications, practice development, office systems, and auxiliary techniques.

Introduction

While the doctor’s diagnostic and therapeutic skills help to restore hope and relieve some of the patient’s emotional stress, a strictly technologic approach is not always enough. A patient’s emotions and frame of mind must also be considered as a component of a patient’s holistic state of health. The state of rapport between patient and doctor can be just as important as the technical care provided, and this rapport is established on a foundation of sincerity, understanding, kindness, and personalized care.

A doctor has moral obligations and professional responsibilities for each patient’s health. Thus, the physician should anticipate possible patient stress by questioning the scope of everyday activities. This questioning and the resulting consideration, however, does not mean to conclude with blunt condemnations. The alert doctor will be aware that typical patients are not interested in the technical aspects of their conditions. They are interested in the removal of pain, discomfort, immobility, and how the condition affects their life-style. Therefore, it is important that the patient’s everyday activities, hobbies, work and personal habits be considered along with the clinical aspects of the patient’s condition.

Many years of study does not guarantee a doctor a successful practice, nor does an attractive office with a nice location that incorporates modern equipment and pleasant furnishings. These factors only establish an opportunity for success. Every professional needs new patients to replace dismissed and self-dismissed patients.

Professional Services

Comprehensive health-care involves certain professional services to meet certain situations. Basically, all office policies and procedures are designed to support a chiropractic office’s four major services:

(1) consultation,
(2) examination,
(3) treatment, and
(4) education.The initial consultation and history are required to help determine the type of initial examination procedures necessary to isolate the cause or causes of a patient’s complaint or complaints. The second consultation follows examination and data evaluation and is held to review the findings with the patient and recommend a treatment program or referral. Ongoing consultations are necessary to receive progress reports from the patient, to counsel the patient against harmful acts, and to provide education toward healthy behavior and performance. The initial examination is necessary to profile a patient’s structural and functional status at the time of entry into the practice and to arrive at a diagnosis and prognosis under recommended therapies. Periodic examinations are necessary to monitor the results of recommended therapies, challenge the prognosis, and offer data to objectively confirm a patient’s subjective reports. All therapies should be designed to assist the patient in returning to as near a state of health and resistance to disease or normal stress as is possible.

These continuing services are involved in most all cases to some degree, but emphasis is considerably altered depending upon the type of case presented and the type of health care necessary at a particular point in time. For example, the typical office will offer five forms of health care:

Review the complete Chapter (including sketches and Tables) at the ACAPress website

1

For New DCs: Getting Known Within the Community

By Frank M. Painter|October 13, 2009|Education, Practice Management|

For New DCs: Getting Known Within the Community

The Chiro.Org Blog

We would all like to thank Dr. Richard C. Schafer, DC, PhD, FICC for his lifetime commitment to the profession. In the future we will continue to add materials from RC’s copyrighted books for your use.

This is Chapter 8 from RC’s best-selling book:

“Developing A Chiropractic Practice”

These materials are provided as a service to our profession. There is no charge for individuals to copy and file these materials. However, they cannot be sold or used in any group or commercial venture without written permission from ACAPress.

Chapter 8: GETTING KNOWN WITHIN THE COMMUNITY

This chapter describes individual responsibilities and projects in patient and public relations. It also portrays some of the more important aspects of national public relations developed by organized chiropractic, along with implementation in various degrees at the state, district, community, and office levels. Initial efforts, sustaining efforts, and development efforts are explained.

It has been previously shown that interpersonal relations generally involve the four steps of

(1) attention,
(2) interest,
(3) desire, and
(4) action.As the goals of mass public relations and community relations programs are to gain public attention and interest in public health in general and chiropractic in particular, these subjects will be emphasized in this chapter. The development of patient desire and action is a function of the individual practice. This was shown in the previous chapter, and it will be embellished in this chapter. Regardless of the public relations or advertising methods used, there can be little practice or professional growth without patient interest and desire.

Introduction

Be they good or bad, everybody has public relations. Positive public relations is that attitude and course of action taken by any individual or group that desires to identify its actions and goals with the welfare of the people to gain widespread understanding and good will.

Public relations in chiropractic can be approached from both an individual practice viewpoint and a professional viewpoint, and these are overlapping and indivisible functions. That is, what is good public relations for the doctor is good public relations for the profession at large, and vice versa. Thus, a well-planned, high-quality, national public relations program will profit the profession little if individual practices are not imbued with the attitude of positive public relations and the development of safeguards that make poor public relations impossible.

Ethical Promotion

Ethics, a service-oriented attitude, and high-quality conduct are the basis upon which any public relations program must be built. Public relations begins in the local community and takes shape through the contacts of individual people with one another. In both the business world and the professions, a good reputation is founded on good works that are communicated truthfully and candidly.

Public relations is not the propagation of favorable publicity regardless of merit, nor is it phony promotions and cheap publicity stunts designed to manipulate public opinion. It refers to true identification with the public welfare — education to mutual concerns, operating in the public interest, and communicating this performance. As the business world has learned that it can, and must, take a careful account of the attitudes and wishes of the public before it evolves its programs of action, so must any health profession.

It must be realized that the modern doctor of chiropractic is a combination of scientist and healer, and this integration has led to growth from fixed orthodoxy and sometimes illogical traditions. As healers, we must be aware of basic psychologic and human-relations facts that contribute to the “art” of our profession.

Poor public relations, ill-will, and resentment take place when either doctors or their assistants fail to identify with the patient’s situation. Patients inevitably react negatively to a procedure or transaction when they are expected to understand without knowing the facts as understood by the doctor and assistant. Thus, it is each doctor’s and assistant’s responsibility to give the facts to the patients and to the public.

The Professional Image

Review the complete Chapter (including sketches and Tables) at the ACAPress website

8

For CAs: Introduction to a Rewarding Career

By Frank M. Painter|September 18, 2009|Chiropractic Assistant, Education, Practice Management|

For CAs: Introduction to a Rewarding Career

The Chiro.Org Blog

We would all like to thank Dr. Richard C. Schafer, DC, PhD, FICC for his lifetime commitment to the profession. In the future we will continue to add materials from RC’s copyrighted books for your use.

This is Chapter 1 from RC’s best-selling book:

“The Chiropractic Assistant”

These materials are provided as a service to our profession. There is no charge for individuals to copy and file these materials. However, they cannot be sold or used in any group or commercial venture without written permission from ACAPress.

Chapter I: Introduction to a Rewarding Career

To enter the health-care field as a chiropractic assistant is an adventure for the qualified individual. The nationwide trend in the primary care professions is not only to provide qualified health-care professionals but also to assure that assistants are qualified to carry out their duties and responsibilities in caring for the health needs of patients. To achieve this goal,

chiropractic physicians are encouraged to use assistants to increase personal efficiency, and
chiropractic organizations are encouraged to sponsor legislation establishing a nationwide accredited chiropractic assistants program.

All states and Puerto Rico have statutes recognizing and regulating the practice of chiropractic as an independent health service because the profession has proven its value as a public service. On foreign shores, the practice of chiropractic is officially recognized and regulated in Canada, Switzerland, Germany, New Zealand, Western Australia, Bolivia, and is acknowledged and accepted in the British Isles, South Africa, Rhodesia, Japan, France, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, and Egypt. Official recognition is being initiated in scores of other countries.

Note: While most doctors of chiropractic are males, the number of female practitioners is growing. Likewise, while the majority of chiropractic assistants are female, an increasing number of males are assuming the role of chiropractic assistant. For the sake of simplicity and not sexual bias, the pronoun “he” is used throughout this program when referring to the doctor of chiropractic, and the pronoun “she” is used when referring to the chiropractic assistant. This is solely to avoid the redundant “he or she” or “he/she” when referring to the doctor or assistant. (more…)

2

What is Assignment of Benefits?

By Frank M. Painter|August 23, 2009|Education, Practice Management|

What is Assignment of Benefits?

The Chiro.Org Blog

I am a member of the Chiropractic Assistants mail group, and find that some offices are confused about assignment of benefits.

Patients can become upset when their Insurance Company does not pay for some, or all of their care, so it is very important that you fully explain Assignment at the start of care. We provide this information on a handout, and we ask the patient to sign the following agreement.

What is Assignment of Benefits?

“Assignment of Benefits” is a legally binding agreement between you and your Insurance Company, asking them to send your reimbursement checks directly to your doctor. When our office accepts an assignment of benefits, this means that we have to wait for up to one month for your insurance reimbursement to arrive. We extend assignment to our clients as a courtesy. Assignment may be withdrawn if your Insurance Company practices “Nuisance Behaviors”.

(more…)

2