Chiropractic Billing | The Strategic Chiropractor

Why Some Chiropractors Chase $44,000 Only to Lose $544,000 or More

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on May 3rd, 2011

Topics: chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic documentation, chiropractic EHR, chiropractic EMR

One of the most common questions that I get around here is on EMR. Everyone wants to know what’s the best EMR system to use or when is a good time to implement EMR or how to implement EMR. You get the idea.

Those of you who have read or heard my thoughts on EMR know that I dance all around this issue constantly. It’s not that I think EMR is a bad idea. On the contrary, most of my clients utilize EMR in their practice. It helps them improve their documentation, compliance and practice management.

Notice I said, most — not all. Read More

Bill Electronically? Mandatory Conversion to 5010 for Chiropractors!

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on April 26th, 2011

Topics: Billing, chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic coding, chiropractic collections, chiropractic webinars, HIPAA

Today I’m going to speak to you about a mandatory format conversion for your electronic billing that you must do by January 2012 or you will not be paid! If 2012 sounds like a long way away, you should know that testing for the 5010 conversion starts now — in April 2011!

Specifically this format conversion is called 5010 and you might’ve heard of it as a HIPAA 5010 Format Conversion or “mandatory claims reformatting.” Lots of chiropractors have been emailing me for advice on what to do, where to go for information and what exactly is required for the conversion.

First — a reality check. Do NOT be fooled by the term HIPAA! One reason I told you up front that you will not be paid and I didn’t mention HIPAA is that I know chiropractors by in large ignore lots of things related to HIPAA. They think, “Well in I’ve never seen a HIPAA policeman” or “this is just some low priority compliance items I can handle later.” This is entirely different!

This 5010 conversion is mandatory if you do ANY sort of electronic claims transmission or electronic billing. Read More

5 Verification Mistakes That Chiropractors Make That Put Their Income at Risk!

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on March 22nd, 2011

Topics: Billing, Business, chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic collections, chiropractic practice management, Collections, Insurance

As we discussed in my last post, Expedited Agreements and Other Fee Negotiation Scams Waged at Chiropractors, insurance payers are continually rolling out new tactics to avoid releasing claim payments or to minimize reimbursements.

Accordingly, your standard operating procedures may longer be sufficient to get you paid for all the good work you do. One overlooked but vital tool to accomplishing this is your Insurance Verification Form. As such, now may be time to enhance your verification of benefits to insure that emerging claim processing tactics are identified and thwarted.

Unfortunately, most chiropractic offices are employing few, if any, of these tactics. Instead, they are doing insurance verification, “the way we have always done it” and getting the same (or worse) results. Read More

Expedited Agreements and Other Fee Negotiation Scams Waged At Chiropractors

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on March 9th, 2011

Topics: Billing, Business, chiropractic billing, chiropractic collections, Collections

Many of you have probably received a letter similar to the one pictured below offering you “expedited” handling of the reimbursement owed on an outstanding claim.

This scam is being used by a number of different companies who contract with payers to primarily (but not exclusively) target out-of-network providers. These letters, which are often received by fax, propose to “expedite payment and decrease the patient’s responsibility.”

While this sounds admirable in theory, a quick look at the math behind this proposal will illustrate why you should feed such documents to a hungry shredder as quickly as possible. Look at the example below: Read More

Maximize Your Chiropractic Income, Minimize Audit Risk WEBINAR!

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on February 18th, 2011

Topics: Audits, Billing, Business, Chiropractic Audits, chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic coding, chiropractic collections, chiropractic documentation, chiropractic practice management, chiropractic webinars, Coding, Collections, compliance, Documentation, Medicare, webinars

By request, we have taken our popular seminar and brought it into your home/office via WEBINAR! Read More

Chiropractic Seminar Freebies You Missed! And Your Chance to Profit From Them…

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on February 10th, 2011

Topics: Audits, Billing, Business, Chiropractic Audits, chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic coding, chiropractic collections, chiropractic documentation, chiropractic practice management, Chiropractic Seminars, chiropractic webinars, Coding, Collections, compliance, Documentation, Medicare, seminars, webinars

For those of you who did NOT attend my recent seminars in the Northwest, here are a few items you missed!

For those of you who attended, as promised, here are the specific references and places to go for the information that was not included in your notepacket.

Tom

P.S. If you did NOT attend my recent seminar, be sure to read the bottom of this post for a Special Offer!!

P.S.S. Seminar attendees — I used this picture above to stimulate your memory to…stop giving it all away! Read More

Medicare Releases 4th Quarter Chiropractic Medical Review Findings

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on January 31st, 2011

Topics: Chiropractic Audits, chiropractic billing, chiropractic coding, chiropractic documentation, Documentation, Medicare

Medicare carrier Palmetto GBA released their 4th Quarter (2010) Medical Review Findings which details the deficiencies they have been noting in terms of billing, coding or documentation errors. These findings are not exclusive to chiropractors. In fact, since chiropractors are only paid for one service in Medicare, we probably should not even make this list. But we did (again). Read More

Bad Debt is Killing Good Chiropractors

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on January 25th, 2011

Topics: Billing, Business, chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic collections, Collections

Too many chiropractors have a lingering problem with debt in their office — and it is literally killing their practice and their profits.

By debt, I am not talking about how much you owe on your student loans, your credit card or even how much business debt you may have due to capital expansion loans, lines of credit, etc.

The debt to which I am referring is bad debt, as in, uncollected accounts receivable. In other words, services you have already performed, but for which payment has not yet materialized. Read More

Replay of Toughest Chiropractic Billing, Coding, Documentation & Collections Questions EVER!

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on December 10th, 2010

Topics: Chiropractic Audits, chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic coding, chiropractic collections, chiropractic documentation, chiropractic webinars

SORRY, THIS REPLAY IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE!

We exceeded capacity of our host for our 3rd Annual webinar, “The Toughest Chiropractic Billing,Coding, Documentation, Collections Questions Ever!” This “maxed out” webinar features Dr. Tom Necela answering questions “live” from chiropractors around the country on a variety of billing, coding, documentation, collections issues!

While we certainly are happy that so many doctors wanted to attend, we want to make this information available to all those who registered and were not able to get to the presentation, so we are making a replay of the broadcast available for a limited time only.

(Click above to listen and watch this 1 hr presentation)

Tom

P.S. This replay will only be available until Dec 31, 2010, so listen while it’s here
and tell your friends before it’s gone!

“The Toughest Chiropractic Billing, Coding, Documentation Questions Ever!” FREE Webinar!

Written by Tom Necela, DC, CPC, CPMA, CCP-P on December 1st, 2010

Topics: Chiropractic Audits, chiropractic billing, chiropractic business, chiropractic coding, chiropractic collections, chiropractic documentation, chiropractic EHR, chiropractic EMR, chiropractic practice management, Chiropractic Seminars, chiropractic webinars

It’s time for the 3rd annual installment of “The Toughest Billing, Coding, Documentation and Collections Questions Ever!”

In this FREE webinar you will have a chance to get your most frustrating or confusing questions answered by Dr. Tom Necela – chiropractor, certified professional coder, certified professional medical auditor and certified compliance professional. Read More

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