Believe it or not, 2009 is nearly over. Before you know it, the challenges of keeping a full schedule around Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays will be here. Instead of looking toward the end of the year and a potentially sluggish schedule with dread, be proactive and make this the best end of your year ever!
Obviously, for many of our chiropractic patients, the economy has taken its toll. Even patients who routinely come in for maintenance care in the past may have put off their regularly scheduled visits or other chiropractic care that they perceived wasn’t absolutely necessary.
Say what you will about the economic forecast, your patients are still very focused on spending needs rather than spending wants. That puts you in an excellent position to remind these patients, who may have put off needed chiropractic care, that in just a couple of months they will lose any unused insurance benefits for 2009. In other words, they may as well flush all those premium payments down the toilet!
It’s no secret that insurance companies make millions billions on patients who do not realize that their plans provide chiropractic coverage up to a certain dollar amount or visit limit annually. But insurance companies certainly aren’t going to remind patients about this, and most patients are too busy to sift through their policies to determine what might remain on them.
Being the smarter than the average bear chiropractor that you are (after all, you are reading my article!), seize this opportunity to send patients a letter notifying them of their unused benefits! The first of October is nearly here and this is the ideal time to begin contacting patients about benefits that will expire at the end of the year. It gives both the patients and your practice plenty of time to get the appointment scheduled and any necessary follow-up treatment taken care of before the busy holiday rush kicks in. Follow these steps to help your patients get the care they need and use the insurance coverage they have paid for:
- Use the letter I’ve prepared for you below.
- Merge the letter into your database and send it to all your patients.
- Add a P.S. that says, “Take your insurance dollars further and schedule that massage while you are here!” (If you offer massage therapy – if you don’t, you need to maximize your passive income and get a hold of my Massage program!)
- Feel good that you are helping patients get the most for their hard earned dollars!
Dear:
Did you know that you may have unused insurance benefits that are about to expire at the end of this year, never to be used again? And did you realize that these very benefits are the ones your premium dollars have been going to all year? If you don’t mind watching your money go down the drain, feel free to toss this note. But if you want to maximize your hard earned dollars, keep reading!
Each year insurance companies make millions of dollars off patients who forego necessary chiropractic care? Many individuals who are paying for insurance do not realize that their plans provide coverage up to a certain dollar amount or visit limit annually. Consequently, some patients are not scheduling the chiropractic care they need, deserve, and have insurance to cover. Thus, the insurance revenues allocated to pay chiropractic claims on many patients are never used, and, unfortunately, those dollars cannot be carried over year-to-year. The bottom line: what you do not use, you lose!
Give us a call today and let’s make sure your spine is in excellent health. As a special incentive for you to take charge of your chiropractic care, if you don’t know the status of your insurance benefits, we will be glad to check them for you and let you know what you have left! So, call the office today and schedule your appointment. I look forward to seeing you again and helping you end 2009 and start 2010 in the best health possible.
Sincerely,
Caring Chiro, DC
P.S. If you have massage benefits (or would like us to check for you), be sure to schedule your stress-reducing massage appointment while you are here and before you lose those benefits too!
To supercharge your efforts, follow up with emails, text messages and/or voice broadcasting to alert the patient that the practice is sending information about their chiropractic insurance coverage and to please watch their mailbox, inbox or voicemail for details. Or, if you would like to save on postage, send the letter via email and alert patients with a text message.
Incidentally, if your office is not using email, text or voice broadcasting services, you are wasting a lot of time and money doing things the old fashioned way. Consider using a service such as Constant Contact (the one I send my emails with) for sending email newsletters. Or look into Doctor Dial for voice or message broadcasting for appointment reminders, recalls or to save your billing person the time of leaving multiple messages to chase down past due balances.
Patients appreciate the fact that their chiropractic office would take the time to inform them of their unused benefit. They don’t like wasting money any more than you do, so help them out and help out your own bottom line as well!
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