The Use of Technology in a Chiropractic Practice

Hi everyone, thank you for joining us for another episode of Catch Up with ChiroTouch, our podcast series where we talk about the state of the chiropractic profession, best practices and recommendations to manage and grow your practice, and share expert advice with a variety of guest speakers. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Brian Blask. I'm an account executive with ChiroTouch, where I consult with chiropractors to determine which software solution is best for them.

We have Dr. Richard Allen with us today to talk about utilizing technology in your chiropractic practice. Dr. Allen is a chiropractor in New Jersey and a longtime user of ChiroTouch. He runs a family practice and has no staff.

He's a very successful solo practitioner, which makes him the perfect guest to talk about how he incorporates technology to help him run his practice. Great to have you today, Dr. Allen. How are you?

All right. Thanks for having me on.

For sure. For sure. I met you at the ANJC conference several years ago.

You had gotten ChiroTouch. I wanted to have you on here because I remember for so many years at the conference, you would come by the booth and talk about how you're using ChiroTouch and talk to your colleagues. You understood it.

You understood the technology. You understood how you can make ChiroTouch work for a solo practitioner, help automate your practice. Start there and share with our audience how you've set up your office with ChiroTouch and how it flows.

Sure. Yeah. So I have a front desk computer and an iPad kiosk at my front desk.

Patients come in and they use a code, which is basically their cell phone number to check in. They report their symptoms in the iPad. And the software allows me to just bring that right into their note.

So it's very low amount of work for me. And in the treatment area, I use the iPads when necessary to make additional documentation changes. Also, the PDF feature of the provider app is amazing.

When I need to have a patient sign a document for on their first visit or if I have to make an excuse form, I'm able to just pull it up from my templates and do it right there on my iPad Pro and patient signs it, I sign it, whatever kind of document it is. It works great. And it's so many different features built into the ChiroTouch that allow me to operate my business as a solar practitioner a lot easier.

Let's get this straight. So it's only you, you don't have staff. What about billing?

Do you do everything yourself there as well?

I do. You know, I have a daughter of a patient who comes in like once a month that helped me file away like paper EOBs and such and help me with like filing. But as far as like billing and all that type of stuff, I do it myself.

So it's amazing, pretty much all paperless. What about intake forms? What do you do for patients coming in, doing intake online?

What do you do? What do you use there?

The ChiroTouch has a feature where it's the intake. I have a welcome email that I've authored that goes through and thanks them for choosing me. And it says that our forms are online.

You need to click this link. And patients click the link. And then it's an online intake form.

It's like the paper that you would normally fill out, but it's a form online. And they go through and fill out their complaints. There's places in this form for them to independently describe several different complaints.

So like if you have pain in your neck, that's like a stiffness and like a four, but you know you have sciatica pain in your low back that's radiating and tingling and anion. You can very accurately describe two separate, multiple separate complaints. And then once they're done, they sign it with either their mouse or finger, and that's their signature, and they click submit.

Then it kind of goes into this secure storage area. And when I'm ready, I import that into my software. The software then takes all their demographic information from that form, populates the demographic fields in their patient chart.

And then on the note side, I open up the provider app where I put my notes and import basically the whole subjective into the treatment note. And I make my tweaks, I fill in extra things that can't be filled out online. And boom, when patients come in, I have a set of all my forms set up as a PDF.

And I have gone through and authored the fields in those forms to auto-populate with their information from ChiroTouch. So, you know, there's codes that you can look up where, you know, the code for importing the patient's full name, the patient's date of birth, all that type of stuff. You can, you know, set the time and do it took me a lot of time to do.

But now that I did it, it's like, boom.

So what is that transition time like? because I mean, that's really the biggest kind of pushback I'll hear sometimes from people in the field is, yeah, this looks all, you know, amazing. And you have got great technology, but there's some transition time.

So what do you say to people that are like, I want to go paperless, but I want to put the time in. Is there a steep learning curve? How long does it take in your opinion?

I mean, I guess you could say I'm a little bit more tech savvy than other people. But I wanted to make it work. And I took the time to do this.

And if you have, I use Adobe PDF software. I've tried other softwares, but Adobe really works the best. It's like $15 a month or $16 a month for the subscription for the PDF software.

But I can do whatever I want with my forms. Like, for example, Medicare just released a new ABN form. That's a form that you have to have a patient sign when you deliver any services to them that may be outside of what Medicare pays for.

Medicare pays chiropractors just to do the chiropractic adjustment. It doesn't pay for the exams or any PT or any therapies or anything like that. So when I'm working with a Medicare patient, this is a new form.

So I've already gone through and started filling that out. And so that way, when a Medicare patient comes in, I can pull up this form and it auto populates their name. And they just have to choose the options and sign it.

It makes it very easy. And I think that ChiroTouch is all about.

We want to make sure that people can streamline their office. That's our whole goal really with the software, right? Make it efficient, make it fast, make it easy for practices to run their office, right?

When it comes to doing fast, compliant notes. But then if you want to go paperless, you can. And you've proven that.

I think that the thought from a lot of practitioners out there is technology's scary, right? It can be intimidating. What is the technology for you?

Is that something where it should be intimidating? Or do you feel like anybody can grasp this?

You could compare the usage of technology to having a secure network. You want to have a secure network in your office. You don't want anybody to hack into your database to steal your stuff.

So either you learn how to do it or you find someone who can set it up for you. It still needs to be done. Once it's done, you can utilize it in a safe way to make your job easier.

So I look at it as a challenge to figure it out. If there's something I can't do, I research it online. You could look at YouTube videos that teach you how to do anything.

So do you want to take the time to do it yourself? Or you look into finding a professional that can set it up for you. But the key is, once it's set up, it does a lot for you.

It really does a lot for you. I mean, just the intake feature. You know, I don't want to sit down and type out everybody's demographics in a thing.

I would probably pay someone to do that because I don't want to do it. But, you know, utilizing that service allows me to not have to be relying upon having to pay someone to do it for me.

Now you have an employee in ChiroTouch in a system that's going to show up to work every day. It is always there. It just makes your life easier.

Exactly. Yes.

You make a great point. Just put in a little bit of time at the beginning to set this up. It's like learning.

If you go to a smartphone, I mean, remember the days when you went from your Motorola Razr to a smartphone, you're like your head is going to explode. Now you're like, oh my gosh, it's so easy. How did we not have these 10 years ago?

Anything new that you implement in your office, you have to learn how to use it and create protocols for your average daily usage with patients. And this is no different. I mean, it's figuring out something that's going to help you with your business, working out the logistics with it, and then utilizing it to help you run your business better.

Some people think, oh my gosh, I can't do this. It's, you know, ChiroTouch has all these bells and whistles, and I don't need all that. I'm just a solo practitioner.

I have one staff, but you make it work to your advantage. You're kind of utilizing it, though, I think one of the best ways possible.

I got ChiroTouch when they changed to ICD-10 because I was worried about disruptions in my revenue stream because of coding, and I was very confident in what I saw with ChiroTouch, and I made the switch, and, you know, over the years, I've continuously evolved what I do with the software, how I use the software. I'm always trying to learn about, you know, different things that, you know, features in the software that allow me to do my job more effectively and not be reliant upon someone else to do it for me.

That's exactly it. And talking about, you know, with COVID right now and the way that the world is changing, technology really is vital at this point, right? It's safe, it's secure, and really it's expected.

Yeah, I mean, if you think about COVID, so, you know, you have to, you know, run the risk of, you know, having people in your office that could be potentially, you know, carrying the, you know, whether it be COVID or the flu or something else. And, you know, just something simple is if, you know, they're sitting there and do, you know, filling out the paperwork, you know, they're touching your pen, they're touching your clipboard, they're, you know, they're there breathing your air and breathing their out into your air. The technology helps move that along with existing patients.

So I still have charts that kind of have a place for, you know, everyone's documents, but I created PDFs with their sign out sheets and I pull up their sign out sheet on the iPad and I have a hand sanitizer right there, you know, and they sign the tablet with their finger. That's their, that's their signature. And then they sanitize their hands right afterwards.

I wipe down the thing with the, you know, with a wipe. And, you know, I don't have to worry about cleaning pens. And something simple as that, you know, the technology can help you in many different ways.

You just gotta figure out what you have and then figure out the problem that you want to solve and figure out how the technology can help you solve it.

That's exactly it. I mean, I feel like overall, ChiroTouch makes it so easy that when you say, you know, I'm not tech savvy, like that's no longer an excuse. We want to give you tips and tricks, right?

We want to make sure that you understand, utilize the extra features in ChiroTouch, become more efficient, get in there and go on to the community and learn extra tips with the CT community online manual, call for help. Like we're here to help you. Yeah.

And this software can do that. People say, I'm not tech savvy. I don't think that's an excuse anymore.

I think you have to take the time to do it for your patients. You have to take the time to do it for the health of your business. I mean, moving forward just makes you so much more efficient and it's safer now.

This software is like a Maserati. I mean, if you bought it just to hear it hum, I mean, there's so many different things that if you just kind of pay attention to it, you're like, wow, I'm totally not even using this and I can use this to make that easier.

That's exactly it. That is exactly it. Well, hey, man, we got to get rolling here.

So I want to say thank you again. Where can people find out more about you? Do you have a website for the practice?

Sure. destinationwilnesscenter.com. I'm on Facebook Destination Wellness Center.

You could search me. My email is drallen at destinationwilnesscenter.com. If anybody has any questions, I'd be more than happy to help.

Awesome, man. You've been such a huge help. I know you're busy.

So sharing your knowledge, taking the time out of the day, we really appreciate it. And just to let everyone know that technology isn't intimidating, but actually a necessity at this point.

Exactly.

And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to Catch Up with ChiroTouch. You can always email us at podcast at chirotouch.com. Again, that's podcast at chirotouch.com.

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That's chirotouch.com/resources. Tune in every week on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you consume podcasts. Thank you again to everyone for listening to Catch up with ChiroTouch.

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