Last time, we discussed how the US government is cracking down on Medicare and Medicaid compliance, which is increasing the chances that many healthcare providers, including chiropractors, will face audits in the near future. In fact, after the success of a recent pilot program, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are in the process of implementing a nationwide program to recoup overpayment and underpayment of Medicare claims.

This program will use Recovery Audit Contractors (RAC) to audit healthcare practitioners in every state to ensure they are compliant with their payments to the federal government. In cases where these audits find errors in compliance, the RAC will seek to recoup the missing funds, which can be devastating for a small business.

Remaining completely compliant can be quite a challenge for DCs and their staff, involving many man hours, increased staff, and large overheads. However, the latest in web-based patient conversion software can eliminate much—if not all—of the compliance headache, while ensuring your practice is increasing its own collections and revenue.  

To gain the best compliance benefits from patient conversion programs DCs should look for software that offers detailed care plans designed specifically with compliance in mind. Such care plans should be pre-loaded with programs that allow you to instantly calculate the exact cost of care for each patient.

Instead of taking the time to look up diagnoses codes or figuring out rationales for your services, these care plan programs will allow you to quickly and easily choose the option that best fits each patient. This way, you can come up with highly detailed care plans that can be customized to satisfy each patient's individual needs, while also ensuring the plans are compliant with Medicare's guidelines. By having such an advanced system at their fingertips, DCs can reduce documentation errors,

paperwork, and even the amount of staff needed to process such claims.

While many patient conversion systems may claim their software provides efficient and complaint care plans, to get the most for their money, DCs should examine the company's care plan features carefully. The best patient conversion software will provide the following benefits for maximizing compliance and patient conversion: 

Customizable: The care plan feature should be designed so you can easily find the plan that best suits each individual patient's needs, no matter their situation. To this end, the best conversion systems will offer a wealth of customizable options for you to choose from.

Compliant-based: To avoid audits and recoupments, care plan systems should always be directly based on Medicare's treatment plan guidelines, ensuring the software will provide maximum compliance.

Integrated: Because most patient conversion systems offer many other functions than simply developing care plans, it's important that the software is fully integrated with all of the other features. This way, any changes to a patient's care plan are automatically worked into the other components of the system, such as payment plans, discount options, and insurance estimation. 

Chiropractic-based: The best patient conversion software programs are designed by chiropractors for chiropractors to ensure the specific scenarios encountered most often by DCs will be covered by the system. Such programs will include numerous preloaded care plans specifically designed with DCs and their patients in mind.

 

Chris Towery is the former associate editor of MASSAGE Magazine and is currently a full-time freelance journalist. He has written hundreds of articles for more than 20 different magazines, newspapers, and custom publishers. Much of his recent writing has been for the complementary and alternative healthcare industry. To contact Chris, email cmreuben@yahoo.com