A patient calls in, "How much is the first visit?" If you're part of a DMPO you can answer it like this, "Miss Jones there is no set fee for the first visit. I can tell you it's not uncommon for them to run anywhere from 275 to $300 unless you have one of those discount medical cards. Do you have one of those?"" "Well, no I don't." "Not a problem, we see a lot of cash patients. If you're a part of that network you have a consult, exam and X-rays instead of 275 it's 175. Do you prefer morning or afternoon?" All of a sudden, we have to understand that patients aren't just patients, they're healthcare consumers. Because we're evasive with what our fees are because it's dependent on payer type, we lose a lot of those calls. That's how you deal with a shopper call for our cash patients that we enroll. Imagine a cash patient checking out at your front desk. "Miss Jones today you had an exam, X-rays, therapy, an adjustment, the fee for that is $300." The patient says, "Well, I don't have health insurance." Same information, "Not a problem, that's why we're part of a network called Chiro-Health USA. You can join that for $49. That covers you and your family for a year and instead of 275 it's 175. Would you like to do that?" When you let patients know what your actual fees are, you truly disclose that. You let them know that as a member their fees are much lower. By the way the doctors get to set their fees, we don't set those. The patient saves the $49 on the very first visit. Quite frankly that's why we had over 10,000 patients join Chiro-Health just last month. It is truly a no-brainer. If you'd like I can go through that same type scenario with let's say the high deductible patient. We've certainly seen changes in deductibles. We're seeing three, five, $10,000 deductibles. Who knows what's going to come next down the pipeline. When we have a high deductible patient, the way we explained it is, "Miss Jones, we verified your insurance and you have a $10,000 deductible. Most patients that have that high of a deductible probably won't meet that in our office. They find that care can be more affordable if the use a discount medical card. Do you have one of those?" The patient says, "Well no I don't." Then you have the opportunity to explain it the same way. "We're part of Chiro-Health. You can join it for 49. Instead of your visits being 90 to $100 per visit, they are 45 or 50 or whatever that doctors historical cash fee has been." It really is in learning what's the payer source that the patient has? Would they benefit in being part of the network? The reality is the doctors are giving these discounts away anyway. Where we made the mistake is not disclosing what are actual fees are. Let's face it, if you're buying anything and somebody says, "Hey, the rack rate is $300, but if you're part of Sam's or Costco it's 175, wouldn't you join Sam's club or Costco? That's exactly what patients do. The more important thing is look at what you've done. You've set your fees to where you can get paid well if insurance is available. Now you have an affordable way to offer discounts that's compliant and legal. As part of our own board institute we go through this with all of this with the doctors and their
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