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#165: 5 Things You Must Know Before Starting Your Own Chiropractic Office - Office Systems

Week 4 - Chiropractic Office Systems

We are on week 4 of the 5 things you must know before starting your own chiropractic practice! If you are a practicing chiropractor then keep listening, all of these things are important for you too! If you haven’t perfected them then listening and tinkering with the way you're doing things, can make a huge impact over the next year and future of your practice.

Free Chiropractic Business eBook!

Week 1 we talked all about your mindset, week 2 we talked about your business plan, week 3 we talked about your office overhead, and this week we’re talking about your systems! If you haven’t downloaded our ebook yet, visit lifestylepracticebuilders.com/ebook. The ebook will take you through each week, with an action plan for working through each step. When I think back on us starting up our first clinic over ten years ago, these were the 5 most important elements to why I think we succeeded and others didn’t. Having a grasp of these 5 concepts as you transition from student to practice owner are very important. So, let’s get on with today’s topic!

Chiropractic Office Systems

Systems are so important, yet you’ll learn practically nothing about them in school. If you want to learn about systems then the best thing you can do is work in an office, shadow in an office, or get coaching from someone who’s got their systems down. I worked in practices several years before I graduated, so I saw a lot that worked well and a lot I knew I’d never use in my own practice. Sometimes learning about what you don’t want is just as important as what you need. As a CA I could pick up on what the patients liked, what they didn’t like, and what really worked.

Chiropractic Policies & Procedures Manual

The systems you set-up in your practice will determine how you run every aspect of your small business. Once you get to a certain point, you’ll document your systems in your Policies & Procedures Manual in order to train employees so your practice runs efficiently and as you intend it to.

Having good systems in place will also determine whether patients find your practice, schedule a visit, and whether or not they’ll finish their care plans. If you have poor systems, then you risk not being found by patients, or having them bail after the first visit to find a new chiropractor, or give up on chiropractic as a whole.

Chiropractic Office Systems You Need

Some of the most important systems you’ll have in your clinic include:

Marketing- spoiler alert, marketing is week #5! So, if you’re unsure of where to start with marketing then stay tuned to that episode. Marketing is everything you do that will bring patients into your office and keep them returning to your office when they need chiropractic care. You’ll have internal marketing and external marketing, online marketing and in person marketing, you’ll have new patient marketing and returning patient marketing. At first you’l try many different ways of marketing your practice, but after a few months you should settle in and focus on what’s working the best and where you feel most comfortable building relationships and becoming a fixture in your community. Listen next week and I’ll talk about the marketing we used that worked, didn’t work, and what I think are some of the most important ways to be marketing in 2021.
Daily Opening Operations-this is everything you do when you get to the office, before your first patient walks in. If you are walking in with your patients, that’s a bad habit. You need to get there at least 20 minutes early to get the computer up and running, check the cleanliness, clean, return messages, look at the schedule and mentally prep for the first patient.
Daily Closing Operations-this is everything you do before you leave the office at the end of the night. If you are walking out with your patients, then that’s a bad habit. During this time you can wrap up patient notes, write down anything you want to remember to do the next day, check patient ledgers, balance the day's transaction summary, clean, and empty trash.
New Patient-this is everything you do from how all new patients schedule, how you take their phone call, how you greet them, your exam process, your ROF process, your insurance process, and how you follow-up after the first appointment.
Insurance-this includes everything from how you check patient benefits, to how you bill the insurance company, how you enter EOB’s, and how you follow-up on processed claims.
Patient Billing-how do you bill/credit patients after processing insurance, what reports do you print and how often.
Office Promotions-what promotions do you run and when, how and when do you decide this, and who’s in charge of each part of the process.
Returning Patient-what do you do when a patient returns for care, how does that change as the time changes between their visits
Motor Vehicle Accident-how do your systems change when a patient comes in due to a MVA?
Patient Referral to Providers-How do you refer patients out, what’s that system look like?

This is just a start! If you’re a practicing chiropractor then where are the holes in your systems? What can you do better? These are awesome things to be thinking about as we enter the new year. The new year is a great time to start new systems, people are most use to change during this time! You also might have some extra time to make these changes during the holidays if you’re taking extra time off.

If you’re starting a practice, then start thinking through all of these things now! It’s much easier to create systems in the beginning of practice than it is when you’re overwhelmed by patients and all of the complexities of running a busy office.

Your action plan is to start documenting processes you want to implement in your practice. If you’re having a hard time knowing where to start, our ROF System masterclass is a critical first step in creating your most important system. Patients need to complete their care plans in order to get better and want to refer friends and family to you. Our ROF system Masterclass will walk you through the ROF system we use in our practice! Learn more about our ROF System masterclass at TheROFSystem.com.