America's Most Read Chiropractic Magazine…
Over the past couple of years, the decompression market has gone from being one of the most scorching markets in the profession, to a virtual non-participator. With the problems that many spinal decompression companies have been having, financially and legally, the question remains to be answered, “What is wrong with the spinal decompression market?”
Continue reading “Is Spinal Decompression Deluded, Diluted or Dead?”
As discussion over the government’s HITECH Act, EHRs, and documentation standards peaks, a new opportunity is reaching out to chiropractors, that
offers us a chance to streamline our care and unite our efforts while easing the cost of providing care. With strong encouragement towards an electronic network of communication, we can look towards a future of health care built upon shared knowledge and a collected community of combined information, helping to advance the treatment capabilities of all practitioners everywhere.
President Obama is vigorously pushing all health care providers to use electronic health records (EHR) or electronic medical records (EMR). The encouragement is through a combination of stimulus money (up to $44,000) paid as a bonus in Medicare payments, or the guaranteed by law reduction in Medicare payments to those that do not demonstrate the use of an EHR/EMR program. Even if you do not participate in Medicare, it is critical to the survival of your practice to buy and use an EHR/EMR system.
Remember, once Medicare requires a specific function, the rest of the insurance world jumps on the bandwagon and demands the same thing, even when it makes no sense. Think of the requirement to have the same information in box 32 as is in box 33 of the CMS1500 form. Within the not to distant future, the insurance world will be demanding EHR/EMR systems in order for you to get paid. And if the insurance world does not, your State Board might. For example, Minnesota already requires EHR/EMR for its doctors.
The big question that you should be asking is
“Why do I need EHR/EMR now?
What is in it for me?”
1. Audit and collection protection
2. Increased income
3. Reduced Expenses
4. Higher PVA (Patient Visit Average)
5. More patients
6. Compliance with Federal and State laws and regulations
Continue reading “Electronic Health Records Why You Need It Now”
Standard Process Helps Prepare Future Health Care Professionals with $500,000 Gift to National University of Health Sciences
Palmyra, Wisconsin– Standard Process Inc., manufacturer of nutritional whole food supplements, has committed $500,000, to National University of Health Sciences (NUHS) to help the school upgrade its Lombard, Ill. campus, beginning with its biochemistry lab.
Renovations on the lab have started and are estimated to be complete by fall. NUHS plans to use the remaining funds to remodel its anatomy laboratory, beginning in the summer of 2012.
“Standard Process shares our vision in preparing doctors with the type of solid training necessary to be first-contact physicians who offer patient-centered whole health care,” said Dr. James Winterstein, NUHS president. “And we are proud to partner with Standard Process in this philanthropic venture.”
“Standard Process is encouraged by NUHS’ desire to enhance its students’ educational experience, and we’re honored to support the university’s facility improvements,” said Dr. Mary Beth Larsen, Standard Process chiropractic relations manager. “By forming a long-term relationship between Standard Process and the university, we are helping the students become the natural health care practitioners needed for tomorrow.”
Admissibility is defined as evidence which may be introduced in a court of law.
When you want to build a personal injury practice, the days of advertising, marketing, advertising/educational newsletters and fancy steak dinners to get new patients are over…long over! In educating 10,000’s of lawyers on medical-legal issues from coast-to-coast, the message has become crystal clear; the lawyers will work with you if you are clinically excellent and your work is admissible.
What makes your work admissible is two-fold. First, you have to render your own opinion and second, you must be expert on that opinion.
“An expert witness is a witness who has knowledge beyond that of the ordinary lay person enabling him/her to give testimony regarding an issue that requires expertise to understand. Experts are allowed to give opinion testimony which a non-expert witness may be prohibited from testifying to. In court, the party offering the expert must lay a foundation for the expert’s testimony. Laying the foundation involves testifying about the expert’s credentials and experience that qualifies him/her as an expert. Sometimes the opposing party will stipulate (agree to) to the expert’s qualifications in the interests of judicial economy.”
Some would argue that gaining acceptance by the medical community is not the goal and I wholeheartedly agree. However, acknowledging the generally accepted statistic that chiropractic cares for 5% of the population, while medicine cares for 95% of the population, makes me pause to think about my strategy to accomplish my goal of having 100% of all Americans under chiropractic care.
I have been in chiropractic for 31 years and 30 years ago my biggest challenge was to neutralize the MD’s who did their best to prevent my patients from receiving a chiropractic adjustment. Today the pendulum has shifted and MD’s, both primary and specialists, are embracing chiropractic; the new goal is to get them to embrace the chiropracTOR, so that chiropracTIC wins.
Last month, in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, after a presentation to lawyers on spinal injuries and spinal care, a neurosurgeon came up to me and 4 other chiropractors and solicited our opinion on patient care. He went on to state that he would like to continue the relationship with the local DC’s as part of his team when caring for his patients.
Two weeks ago, after another lecture in Chicago, 2 anesthesiologists and a physical medicine specialist who were in attendance approached me and wanted to know about protocols in utilizing chiropractic with their patients. The same situation occurred with a NY-based orthopedic surgeon on Long Island.
Recently, an internist inquired about sub-leasing to a chiropractor, as he felt that an in-house chiropractor was a good team solution to the non-surgical back cases that were clogging up his office.
In every scenario, these MD’s had seen the chiropractors’ curriculum vitae through attending lectures or having them as “ice breakers” for the relationships. These MD’s have also experienced the level of clinical excellence of the chiropractors through dialogue and treated them as colleagues instead of second class citizens.
This is the bridge to the 95% of the population. We, as a profession, have been going to the public for well over a millennium and have succeeded in reaching that 5% of the population, but the door was shut to organized medicine. Understand that organized medicine does not mean the doctor next door; it is the political and legislative machine that drives the laws and research dollars in our country. It is those two things that bring medicine the other 95% of the population by organized medicine’s lobbying efforts to secure public and private funding on issues like cancer and tooth decay, alike.
Can you imagine the government sponsoring a $10,000,000 research grant to the chiropractic profession on fighting “spinal decay through regular chiropractic adjustments?”
It starts by being on the “inside looking out” vs. being on the “outside looking in.”
If you are the “real deal through clinical excellence,” the medical community will embrace you. However, you must meet them on common ground, so they have a real concept of your level of excellence. It starts with a correctly formatted curriculum vitae (CV) displaying your level of education and knowledge through citations on the document. There are many avenues to get that into the hands of the MD’s and the easiest way is to send an evaluation report to every primary care physician of each of your patients and include a copy of your CV. This CV will also follow you to court on personal injury cases and in the insurance industry through managed care.
If you do not have a CV in admissible format, there is a free service at www.uschirodirectory.com that will walk you through the process of creating one. It is a five-minute process and you can print it out when it is completed.
Your CV is often the ice-breaker to relationships. However, if your knowledge base doesn’t reflect your CV, be prepared to be a “one-and-done.”
The common ground with the MD is knowledge of the spine (neuromuscular) and imaging (primarily, MRI). Those are the two areas in which you need to become expert.
Do not talk technique, because the MD could care less; they only care that you are the best at what you do and have the knowledge base and credentials to back it up. With today’s technology and our level of quality professional education, we must continually go beyond the subluxation in our desire to treat subluxation, and that journey must continue well beyond our professional diploma. It is solely our responsibility.
It is this type of clinical excellence and verification on our CV’s that will create that paradigm shift and have the medical profession running after us for solutions to their problems. Once that occurs, the population shift to chiropractic will gain momentum and start moving towards that 95% of the population, because we are the solution and no longer the problem.
In each instance I discussed, the MD’s reached out to the chiropractors because of their knowledge based on our common issues. Once there is a greater need for utilization nationally and we are on the “inside” of organized medicine, research grants, laws and public awareness will come much easier and with support.
Your job is to become clinically excellent beyond the adjustment and have it reflected in your CV.
Dr. Mark Studin is the President of CMCS Management which offers the Lawyers Marketing Program, Family/MD Marketing Program and Compliance Auditing services. He can be contacted at www.TeachChiros.com or call 1-631-786-4253.
No alarm clock, no office to go to, I wake up. Isn’t there something I should be doing?
I think, What am I going to do? I’m old, not dead. Why did I retire?
We all face it or die first. My father faced it. My grandfather faced it. What did Grandpa do?
It goes off in his head like a fire cracker, not a big one, a cherry bomb; a little one, maybe a sparkler spitting burning white bits in front of his eyes, he thought, I’ll teach her to cook!
Speaking to my Grandmother, he said, “Addie, have you ever tried fixing—.”
Family history didn’t record any of his recipes, if any were ever prepared or eaten. Grandma raised seven kids, ran their farm while he was working as a brick layer, and did all the cooking for more than 50 years when he got this idea. Continue reading “Retired”
As a functional medicine practitioner and instructor, my fundamental belief of how dysfunction and disease can be prevented is the basis of care that I provide to my patients and the passion that drives my lectures. My most recent research, of which I am sharing here, involved the relationship between ROS, mitochondrial dysfunction, and aging.
The primary role of the mitochondria is to generate energy in the form of ATP. The electron transport chain (respiratory chain) and oxidative phosphorylation are the pathways in which energy is produced. These reactions occur along the inner mitochondria. During the transfer of electrons from one complex to another, electrons can escape, producing reactive oxygen species (ROS). A high level of ROS and a low level of antioxidants result in oxidative stress, which cause damage to the mitochondria and surrounding tissue.
Continue reading “Reactive Oxygen Species, Mitochondrial Dysfunction Disease, and Aging”
An Industry Leader Puts His Company’s Focus on Giving Back to the Chiropractic Community.
It’s Monday morning and the sun has yet to reveal itself when the office lights at Integrated Practice Solutions (IPS), maker of practice management software ChiroTouch, flicker on.
As Robert Moberg stands in his office, looking over his desk, he contemplates the day that lies before him. Soon the staff will arrive and the hallways, cubes, and offices will spring to life. But, for now, there is a quiet moment. And, before reviewing the company financials, sales reports and the like as most Presidents would do first thing on a Monday morning, he, instead, consults a rather unique folder: One that is filled with ideas, concepts, and plans—not restructuring or streamlining operations—but for giving back to the chiropractic community. It has, in fact, become his hallmark.
Robert has launched many endeavors in the spirit of giving back, from providing the industry with information-based webinars, to donating funds to state chiropractic associations, to helping chiropractors avoid the traps of digital documentation—regardless of the software system they’re using.
“Prior to taking on the job of running Integrated Practice Solutions, I had a meeting with the owners,” said Robert. “I had to make it clear how important it was to me, personally, that we, as a company, focus as much on giving back to the community we serve as we do in creating the premier software platform in the industry. And they whole-heartedly agreed.”
And with that agreement in hand, Robert wasted no time in finding unique, yet critical ways to enrich the chiropractic community. He found his first opportunity to give back through informational webinars.
Recent webinar topics include Market with Corporate Spinal Screenings and Explode with New Patients, Building Value in Your Practice and Equity in Your Business, 7 Secrets to Becoming a New Patient Magnet, and Hi-Tech Stimulus Act Updates.
