Hey guys, welcome to Podiatry. Practice Mastery. Don here. Want to share about a little experience. I don't know if you guys know on the side. I don't know if it's on the side, but I, I use a Thena for my EMR and occasionally I get asked to help people with their, what their EMR. And that's why I kind of put all the templates together that I use, and I kind of give them out, let people use them and things like that, they're all, I'll put them underneath.
Eat this episode. If you want basically it's a Google Google drive folder with all the templates and things like that that you might find beneficial. And and then I did a few. There's a few videos that I've done as well on that topic but I was talking to someone the other day. She's kind of a lot of newer practitioners. She's been in practice for about seven or eight years. And kind of similar I have two kids, she has four kids and she is switching from a Private
Practice Group to her own thing. And she had a lot of questions about Athena. And I just because other people might have these questions, I wanted to go over those one of the main questions was about billing and do you need your own billing person in my experience? Some of the emrs are trying to include their own billers and we do not, we have we still have our own in-house billers. That we use.
We thought that by switching to what some of these emrs that they would do all the billing for us and I want to clarify they will for like an extra percentage point or something like that. I think her initial percentage point is like eight percent and I don't know billing is included with some to figure that out but if you think about it if they're
really good it might be good. But if they're doing every single specialty it's a little bit more challenging and it's probably better to have in-house billing and what I mean by it. House, doesn't mean you have to be at your office, they can even be a virtual person. Because, in our office, we have one in-house Miller, and we have one person that she works from Florida and she works virtually because she can log into our Athena, and she can do all the billing and pushes things out
very, very well. Her name is Jess and the reason we do that is we found that doing it in-house. There's more of an incentive to run after the claims. So for example, if things aren't covered They get kicked back, we're more incentivized to do that versus maybe someone else. And, you know, because also, you have to look at what the value and time value is, because within Athena or any any of these billing companies they get a percentage, right?
So you're already paying a percentage for your EMR and then you're also paying another percentage for your billing software. So it, so for the biller, so it kind of goes up, we don't pay a percentage to them, we just pay them like their salary or whatever their their amount is that Get paid. So another thought maybe as I'm just thinking about it is the same way where I'm starting to use a scribe. To do.
Like, scribing you could even find someone I guess you could train someone from another country to do that. As long as they kind of know what to do when you have a training, a training process for that. So that was one of the questions was, does it come included? Another question that she had was do, they get all your credentialing and this is what kind of a little I guess snafu that happened. Is she thought that they came on before you got credentialed and really they don't help at all
with credentialing. I don't think any emrs do you Pay someone to do credentialing or you can just do all the hard work to switch. Everything over to your new address, and your nose, and your new insurance wherever you're going to be at then that, and that's what's really delaying. This this doctor that starting her own practice.
Is that aspect? So you have to remember, if you are switching from one practice to another, you have to switch all your all your billing information and that the third thing that we're kind of arguing back and forth about not arguing, but just talking about is a dislike that I have. I think it's not just specific to to Athena. I think it's any Mr. Unless they can do a carve-out is that there are a lot of cash to pay things that we do in our office.
For example or talking carry Flex on a fix Shockwave Orthotics, things like that. And that's a substantial amount amnio substantial amount in the office and and even though they're not billing it through the Clearing House, they're still getting a percentage of it. So this is kind of one of our qualms with an item and found to anyone that kind of does a carve-out, it would make sense. They would do a carve out of that.
Meaning all the, I don't know the stuff you sell, you would, you could just have for yourself. So that was another. Another question that we were talking about last night on the phone. And, and I guess the, and we're talking a little bit about like, online scheduling. She asked why I did only new patients via the website, not the follow-up patients in the reason for that is on our website. If you go there, which is Central Mass Podiatry.com, you can make an appointment for a new page.
Patient. But the follow-ups you can't. And the reason for that is in our schedule, we have new appointment blocks, depending on the day, there's like three or four in the morning and then three or four in the afternoon and those are fixed. But the follow-ups, the follow patients, don't always know where to schedule depending on the procedure. So for example, if they schedule and they they're seeing for one thing and they don't really know
what it's for. Let's say they have to come in for a shock wave and they don't know what Shockwave. They're just making a follow-up appointment and they're in there. There's always already two or three Shockwave there or something else like that, or they want to come in for a loony line. They No, that, that is for a medical assistant appointment and not for a doctor appointment. So that's the reason we don't do follow-up, I guess another
option. We could allow them to do follow-up, and then just call everyone, okay? And then the last thing which she actually helped me with this other doctor is verifying coverage for all DME fryer. We don't have a really good system for that.
I want to be clear, maybe I should, I just don't, but I liked the idea that she gave and what it was is is you you certainly for all new patients, you check and then you put that in a little sheet and you save that in the EMR in a certain section under like documents so you can make a section for like DME checking and or something like that. So you, at least know when they come in, you can check that what their deductible is, how much of that they've met thing, things
like that. So, those are kind of the, the highlights of our talk. I'd love to know what you guys do, if you check coverage for every patient, if you have a really good system, Where do you put that in your EMR? Do you put it somewhere? Do you like do a PDF? Or if you have like a Word document and kind of what your workflow is? Let me know. Send me an email at Don at Podiatry, practice Master e.com and then let me know any like I'm other thoughts or things
that are working for you. One thing I was I did an interview yesterday from it's called a sub kit s UB ki ta Ki T and what that is it's a subscription service. I don't think it's gonna really work for. Podiatry of trying to figure out a way that would work for Orthotics. I've been kind of thinking about this for a while but their whole thought was if a patient's let's say they get the Orthotics and then like four messages.
For example, it's not covered by insurance so some are covered others aren't most people aren't. So they get it for 550. We, you know, and then they pay us monthly for that. Let's say it's like 15 bucks, or 20 bucks a month and included with the monthly thing.
They could they They get some type of like an insurance or outgrowth or something else that that they could get in addition to it. I still like this idea of a thought I could subscribe button but the thing is, let's say they stopped paying how are you going to get the rest of the money, right? If they stop paying for that subscription, another way that might be a little bit better and I'm just kind of throwing it out.
Here is doing not so much a subscription, but having a insurance plan and I'm just calling Get an insurance plan. So instead of the orthotic company ensuring the Orthotics you could ensure the Orthotics and my thought is let's say that cost them the insurance let's say a cost them a dollar a month okay I'm just throwing out a dollar a month. The main reason for the insurance plan isn't so much for the insurance. It's more as a way that we can
keep getting paid. Let's say a dollar a month or something else, like that are five dollars a month but more importantly that then we can Market other. Stu these patients. So if they have your, I don't know your orthotic Club. Okay? We could make an orthotic Club in our office or maybe it is this not or thought a company specific. So all the orthotic companies could could participate in this. And then with this, they would have, let's say, protection
against theft. You would have protection against breaking protection against. I don't know other things and then you could add add other benefits, kind of as, as add-ons, that we get their monthly. Letter about Orthotics, they would get there. I don't know. Healthy healthy orthotic Club tips about foot foot issues. So basically it's a way that the podiatrist could use to get in front of their patients more frequently.
It's almost like a, you're charging them and then they're automatically getting a newsletter that's specific to the podiatrist sent directly to them. Let's say once a month or once a quarter, so I think that's kind of a neat anyway. Do it. And the other good idea that some kid had was this thing about, they have this thing called go solo Geo Sol. Oh, and what I liked about that is they sent me an e-mail. You may have got it from them as well, or maybe not, maybe
because I'm on their list. But the neat idea about go solo is, they send out basically, it's a Google form and they ask you to put your information in there. So if you look up, go solo.com. And the neat thing is is they say well, we're going to ask you these questions. It's about your business and we are going to publish this on our website and we're going to put backlinks to your site's and all your socials. So the neat thing is is it's
providing a benefit to me, okay? Or other entrepreneurs. Basically, this is for entrepreneurs, it gets their name out there and it also is going to give good content for their blog. So the kind of the conversation in my head is twofold one within Podiatry. Practice Mastery all these That I've interviewed or companies, I could do a Google doc or a Google form, they could fill it
out with their socials. I could do backlinking and put it in a blog section under, I don't know, the best of Podiatry companies, it would be good for them. They would get backlinks and I would get more content for the blog and you could also do that with practitioners. So for practitioners, they could share their best tips or something like that or even within my Central Mass Podiatry website. You could do the same thing.
With local businesses kind of as a, you know, as a kind of a thank you giving backlinks to the local shoe store, physical therapy places, other people that are I'm already referring to, but it would it would kind of create Goodwill for them and then they could, they could use this in sometime somehow in their marketing. So I just thought that was a kind of a neat approach. It's a weight one to produce content for your blog. It's also a way to give Goodwill
to other people that need that. By giving them backlinks. Anyway, those are the ideas for now. I'd love to know your thoughts on that. If you guys haven't downloaded the the patient, presentations tool, go to Podiatry, practice Mastery and download that, subscribe to these podcasts and let me know what you think. Okay, thanks guys.