Going green can reward you financially and improve your practice in addition to helping the planet.

By Derek Greenwood

How “green” is chiropractic as a profession? What kind of impact does your profession have on the environment? Everything you do has an effect on the world around you. Are you making it better or worse? Can modern technology make your office better, more efficient, and greener at the same time?

Most chiropractors own or work in small businesses. So it’s fair to ask whether your offices really are polluters of the environment. Thankfully, most chiropractic practices don’t burn coal, dispose of nuclear waste, or flood parking lots with uncapped oil wells.

At first glance, chiropractic doesn’t look too bad as a profession, but most still do things that cause a negative impact on the environment. That means you can change things a bit to make an improvement and make your life better and less stressful at the same time.

A mainstream concern

You can show concern for the environment, and take steps to preserve it and lesson your impact on it without being an environmental extremist. Most people enjoy the outdoors and want to see it stay nice for their grandchildren and great grandchildren. So with that in mind, here’s a closer look at how you can make a positive impact on the environment, right from the confines of your practice.

A good place to start is with the amount of paper you use in your office. Most people use more than they think.

Paper use depends on many things, such as the number of paper bills and statements you send out, and the amount of letterhead, envelopes, files, charts, and records you use and store.

Some offices have so much paper they have to rent storage units to house their excess files. Some offices even have a full-time person who only deals with filing and other paper management tasks.

Based on experience and informal surveys, it’s safe to estimate that the average doctor, in the average clinic, uses approximately two cases of paper a month. That equates to around 24 cases per year. In terms of environmental impact, that’s about one and a half trees per year, per doctor, per clinic.

That may not sound like much, but consider that there are more than 30,000 practicing chiropractors in the U.S. Some estimate there are nearly double this number, but even if you take 30,000 offices and multiply them by 1.5 trees per office, that’s 45,000 trees — a lot of lost camping spots.

On the high end, 45,000 trees would be about 130 acres of trees at 350 trees per acre; on the low end, it would be about 70 acres. So you could split the difference and call it 100 acres even.

A hundred acres of forest is a lot to cut down for paperwork

but it feels like even more when you know that something can be done about it.

Re-imagine your office

The answer is to move toward becoming a paperless office. Every insurance company, the government, and most others want this to happen. There is pressure from nearly every corner to enact electronic health records (EHR) and electronic billing. So can you go completely without paper?

If you suspect that the “fully paperless office” is not here yet, you are right. But being nearly paperless is possible. Imagine an office where there is no paper sign-in sheet because it has been replaced by a digital sign-in pad.

Imagine an office where a computerized appointment book handles scheduling instead of a paper one.

Now envision an electronic documentation system where most of the patient’s paperwork is handled by computer, where SOAP notes and narratives are completely digital, and can be sent to insurance companies and attorneys over the Internet without the need for a single sheet of paper.

Now imagine your billing and insurance follow-up being handled without generating any paper. You are also imagining 100 acres of trees that do not have to be cut down every year. That looks pretty nice, too.

To be sure, there will likely always be some paper receipts and letters that can’t be emailed or faxed. Even so, the paperless office is no longer just a dream. With modern computer software products, you can get pretty close to paperless.

Where else can you go green? How about replacing your old cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors with modern liquid crystal diode (LCD) flat screens? An LCD screen uses less energy and doesn’t expose the user to stray radiation. That’s good for everyone involved.

The costs of LCD screens — even the larger ones — are very low, so there is no excuse to hang on to old CRT monitors. Saving energy and protecting your staff at the same time is very green.

Laser printers have also improved over the years. Old laser printers use a lot of energy. Replacing them with modern versions can save energy and in most cases they will print faster and at a higher resolution.

A win-win

The point isn’t to do any or all of these things just to be part of the trendy crowd. The reason is that doing so will help make your office more efficient and more profitable, while improving your patient management and your bottom line. In this economy, those are good things.

It’s pretty cool when being green is a nice side effect of running a better, more efficient office. It’s a win-win.

Derek Greenwood is the founder and CEO of EON Systems Inc., creators of The Digital Office, an EHR solution. He can be reached at 800-955-6448, info@eonsystems.net, or through www.eonsystems.net.