New look, new forum

Hello Everyone,

We have another opportunity to meet together to help our profession grow.

It is www.acupunctureeconomics.ning.com

Please join in and let me know what you think.

Thanks

Steve

Five biggest mistakes I made setting up my private practice

Hello everyone,

A question was asked about setting up the Acupuncture clinics in the military. I was on active duty status and the clinics were run/funded by the Air Force. My biggest challenges had more to do with bureaucracy and implementing something that didn't exist. This all started as a spear head project from the Surgeon General of the Air Force. 

Mistakes I made setting up my practice in the civilian sector.

1) Let the experts do their jobs.

 I tried to be an expert in too many areas. I am an acupuncturist. Before that in the Air Force I was a teacher, and EMT/Combat Medic, and a neurodiagnostic technologist. However, I have never been an accountant, a book keeper, or an insurance specialist. I wasted so much valuable time, money and effort not paying other people to do what they do well.

2) I tried to be everything to everyone.

In the beginning all of my speaking to potential patients, physicians, and anyone who would listen was too broad. I was not listening enough to what people wanted to know about acupuncture. Instead I was pushing hard for them to understand that acupuncture is good for everything from acne to xerostomia. Bottom line by talking too much and not listening enough I lost people by giving them too much information. The fear was that I wasn't going to cover enough ground and not going to say something that the person would find valuable. 

3) Not accepting insurance sooner.

I started as a cash practice because I could not get a handle on the whole insurance thing. Accepting insurance literally doubled my practice and continues to bring new patients because I'm now on the Blue Cross site as a provider that accepts Blue Cross insurance. 

I'm in the middle of an audit from Blue Cross right now. It really is going well and I am looking at this as an opportunity to teach the insurance companies about what we are and what we do. They have been reviewing my records and have not found any glaring mistakes so now they are coming for an office visit.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

4) Trying what had failed for others.

Many of my peers have tried things like writing their own advertisements and brochures with limited to no success. Somehow I got the idea in my head that I was going to succeed where they had failed. In truth I failed where they did as well. The simple reason is that I wrote my material thinking like an acupuncturist. Acupuncture Media Works puts out some great educational material that I say is pretty effective at reaching the average person. 

5) Getting a website built by Yellowpages.

If you are going to have a website then please, please, please, get it done by someone local that you can go talk to face to face. If the site looks terrible potential customers do not see it as a reflection on the web designer they see it as a reflection of you.

It may or may not be fair but we can and do judge people by the way they run their business. The more you stretch yourself out and take yourself out of your area of expertise the more chances you have to come across as less than professional. This translates to a message in the potential patients mind that "this person may not know what they are doing."

Remedies to these mistakes:

1) Find people you who are expert in the fields you need and hire them. Many professionals like accountants have a sliding scale based on how much work you represent. By paying the experts you not only get the tasks done right the first time. You also get the gifts of your time, focus, an energy back so that you can be the expert in acupuncture. 

2) Yes acupuncture is a complete healing system that can help many health concerns. However, by trying to tell every potential patient everything that acupuncture can do is like asking them to drink from a fire hydrant. Listen more than you speak and focus on what concerns the person in front of you. When giving a talk focus on one subject like headaches. 

3) Get a billing specialist and sign up for insurance. Remember to bill for only what you have written in your notes. If it's not in your notes it did not happen and you cannot bill insurance. Having said that the insurance companies are not bad. They just really don't have a clue about who we are or what we do. By reaching out to them to educate them we can further show our patients and communities at large that we have legitimate place in the health care community.

4) If everyone else has failed at a task ask them why and how they failed. Then don't make your attempt look just like theirs. 

5) Support your local community and have a local person build your website. This is a great way to start networking.

Why worry about practice management??

Hello Everyone,
I'm getting good feedback to my personal email. Please post a comment here on the blog so that we all can share.
At the end of the day I'm not interested in people singing my praises. I'm interested in people growing their acupuncture practices.
In my mind practice management is paramount to being a good healer. In our current day of technology and information sharing we stand a decent chance of being at least as good if not better healing professionals than our ancestors. However, if you can't make enough money to pay the bills then it doesn't matter if you know the best point combinations or are the best healer since Qi Bo.
Having a poorly run practice or not having a practice at all when you have the knowledge/skills to help people is selfish.
It is akin to saying I know how to help the problems I see around me but I just can't be bothered.
If you are scared, overwhelmed, or just plain don't know where to start that is fine. Because that is what Acupuncture Economics is all about. Let's partner together and figure out the struggles so that we can grow as profession to help our peers, our community and the world.

Starting from scratch

I am a licensed acupuncturist in the state of Maryland.
I helped set up three successful acupuncture clinics at Andrews AFB, the Pentagon, and the White House, while on Active Duty status in the United States Air Force. Setting up a private practice is somewhat difficult for many acupuncturist due to a lack of fundamental business knowledge. As a profession we not prepared to understand insurance, billing practices, lease negotiation, taxes, or incorporation strategies. There are many business resources for other professions but none that are easy to find specifically targeted to acupuncture. This is a huge hurdle because it means every acupuncturist is recreating the wheel when opening and managing their own practice.
We need to change this trend. Acupuncture has its place in the health care community. However, we are not unified nor are we speaking to the insurance companies and the western medical community with clean and clear intention.

The intention of this blog is to start facilitating conversations on the following subjects:

1) Insurance billing - What companies cover acupuncture services, what is allowable, how many units can be billed per session, what qualifies as a treatment, what do the insurance companies want to see on an audit.

2) Practice building- Benefits of a cash practice vs an insurance practice.

3) Community acupuncture vs Private Practice - what are the pro's and con's

4) Electrical Acupuncture- What role does it play? How do you get paid from insurance?

5) Herbs- When to prescribe and how to get patient compliance? Will insurance pay?

6) Role of the acupuncturist in the health care community- where do we fit? How to speak to western medical physicians and make sense. How to get referrals from physicians.

7) Resource links - legal issues, treatment strategies

8) Best of Breed- Show case practitioners from around the country to let the world know what they are doing well.

9) Worst of Breed- Tips from practitioners who have tried ideas that do not work.

10) Blog/Chat/Forum - What do we need as a profession?

11) Practice management- Everything from the various ways to schedule patients, getting supplies, equipment, hiring staff, and doing taxes.

12) Equipment review- rating/reviewing equipment on the market.

13) Gold Standard Treatments- What are the "bread & butter" treatments that are making clinics successful.

While this is not an exhaustive list of services and information Acupuncture Economics will provide it is a representation of the direction I see for serving my profession.