Licensing boards in most states do not have jurisdiction over fees. Any complaint opens up carte blanche for the board to then go in and investigate anything and everything. Which is why so many times a doctor will have a silly little complaint to the board, but then come out with a problem because their documentation wasn't up to par or their X-rays weren't quality enough, diagnostic quality enough or something to that effect. Why put yourself in that position is the point Ray was really clear on. I just wanted to bring that home. Thanks for raising that Ray. Let me bring that particular point to life. When I mentioned that 13 hour board meeting I was in. As I recall the details. This particular patient came in for something other than neuro musculoskeletal complaints. I think it was related to either diet or thyroid or something, which is fine. The problem was I believe it was a patient that was covered by Blue Cross, the medical policy only covers neuro musculoskeletal complaints. There the patient's intake form with was no complaints of neck pain, back pain, any NMS type of problem. Yet we as good chiropractors we can find things on patients. At the end of the day in that case, it went from that's one patient with one complaint. "Geez, was those services medically necessary and covered by the policy, for the insurance company asking for 10 more files. That's a prime example of, "Here's a money complaint that can turn onto a full blown audit, just because you let them get the foot in the door because once they're there, like you said it's game on. You can't think about the $30, think about your risk by having an auditor come in, an investigator come in and everything is just right there for them to see. Just make wise decisions on that. Doctors and staff both seem to struggle at times addressing finances with patients. We all know that. It's one of the critical factors about some of the more successful practices versus some of the doctors that struggle a little bit more than others. How do you explain a DMPO as an affordable payment option to cash, high deductible, and even Medicare patients because that's a whole area in and of itself. Right. I'll share this with you. We have doctors that will join our network. I will tell you where some of the biggest push back comes from the front desk staff and insurance staff because the mindset is, "Geez Doc, I can't even get patients to pay their deductibles and copays. How am I going to get them to join a network for $49?" What they fail to understand is historically our profession has not been very transparent. Call any chiropractor's office and ask how much the first visit is. You will hear what I call the chiropractic two step. The staff dancing all around the subject, "Well Miss Jones, there is no set fee. I'll be happy to schedule you for a complimentary consultation, yada, yada, yada." The reason they do that is we have one fee for PI, another for comp, another for cash, et cetera. When you're using a discount medical plan, let me just run through this, what we call a shopper call.
Dr. Foxworth:
Dr. Hoffman:
Dr. Foxworth:
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