Welcome to Issue 20, which takes a look at personalized chiropractic care and revolutionary new options to treat more patients and grow your practice.
The experts in this issue offer you sound advice on brain-boosting supplement regimens, new strategies for holistic pain relief and disease prevention, keeping up with HIPAA and Medicare requirements and how personalized chiropractic care can be a win-win-win for them, your practice and you, the DC. Here’s a preview:
Treat patients better
According to Luke Barr, you can strengthen your role as a leader and improve patient outcomes by adopting a personalized chiropractic care approach and adding some of the most exciting, cutting-edge new brain supplements to your treatment plans. “The scientific community has increasingly demonstrated the potential benefits of nootropics and adaptogens through rigorous research and clinical trials,” Barr writes in this issue.
If you haven’t tried them yourself, invest in some of the latest nootropics and adaptogens to feel their benefits for yourself. Then incorporate them into your patients’ treatment plans to help them super-charge their cognitive function, get stress under control and boost well-being. Recommend lifestyle changes to your patients, too. In addition to helping keep their brains sharp, you may help reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which seven million Americans (and counting) now live with. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this number is projected to double to 14 million by 2060.
Healthy living guru Robert Silverman writes that today’s chiropractic patients have no reason to assume cognitive impairment from AD and other causes is an unavoidable part of aging. Cognitive impairment can not only be treated and reversed, he suggests, but even prevented or delayed. Integrative DCs can make a huge difference in this area by recommending the lifestyle changes people need to make to help keep AD at bay.
Help with headaches
Take an innovative two-pronged approach to headaches, and you could have some very happy patients on your hands. Brian Hortz recommends a combination of manual therapy and dry needling, which research indicates is effective at relieving cervicogenic headache pain.
“Both techniques can stand alone as effective approaches; however, their combination can be far superior in addressing cervicogenic headaches because of their unique and distinct target tissues,” Hortz writes.
Prevent patient falls
Balance deteriorates with age, significantly increasing patients’ risk of falls. So, start doing balance assessments with your older patients to address their immediate pain and mobility concerns as well as keep them from taking a fall and possibly sustaining a life-threatening injury, such as a hip fracture. Mark Sanna gives you his quick-start guide to doing balance and proprioception testing, as well as steps for how to implement it seamlessly into the routine care you already offer
Ready to go concierge and provide personalized chiropractic care?
As traditional healthcare models struggle to meet the evolving needs of today’s patients, many providers have turned to the concierge model as a way to elevate the patient experience. Michael Perusich explains how in a concierge practice, patients pay a membership fee to access your services (bringing you ultra-consistent revenue) and then you work together to personalize chiropractic care and maximize their health. They’ll be happy and healthy; you’ll gain great professional satisfaction and enjoy a healthy income boost as well.
Keep up with HIPAA and Medicare
HIPAA rules changed in June —and you only have until Dec. 23 to get your practice in compliance. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights has significantly updated the HIPAA Privacy Rule, with changes aimed at enhancing the protection of patient reproductive health information. The time to take action is now, says Ty Talcott, who gives you the details and some suggestions for getting your staff up to speed.
Medicare has some changes you need to know about, too. Coding expert Kathy Weidner tackles the mystery and frustration around the Medicare Part B advance beneficiary notice (aka the ABN) and presents “simple and straightforward ways to remain compliant and protect your financial interests and those of your patients.”
I hope you enjoy this collection of articles on personalized chiropractic care and the many ways you can continue to provide long-term health solutions and inspiration to your patients.
To your health, prosperity and success!
