A growing therapy practice is something to celebrate! However, every clinic, at some point in its growth, encounters aches and pains that can hinder further or even current success. Here are some process improvements you can make to mitigate growing pains -even as your patient list grows.

Implement Smart Scheduling and Waitlists

The foundation of any successful clinic is scheduling that runs like a well-oiled machine. Your scheduling software should make this as easy as possible for your office staff. That means more than keeping provider calendars at their fingertips, it means being able to categorize appointment types and using tools that automatically find open appointment slots.

Smarter scheduling also includes implementing a waitlist that’s integrated into your scheduling tools, so you’re not missing out on revenue from patients who you don’t have the capacity to see now.

Don’t Skimp on Documentation

Open Your (Metaphorical) Doors

Regardless of what the future holds for COVID, telehealth has become an expectation for many patients and their caretakers. And who can blame them? With busy schedules to accommodate, possible mobility issues, lack of transportation, anxiety, or even rising gas prices, there are tons of reasons that get in the way of making in-office appointments. And we all know how detrimental missed appointments can be for outcomes and retention. So, take advantage of telehealth. By offering a secure and convenient treatment option, you can see more patients than ever before.

Get a Handle on Billing

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There is no time like the present. Or at least goes the old saying. If you’re embarking on a new journey in your career and thinking of starting your own practice, we can’t be more thrilled for you. We also understand, however, that this new endeavor can be frightening since therapy clinics are nothing like the average business. Let’s walk through a few high-priority items to iron out before starting your own therapy practice.

1. Understand Your Niche

As you know, patients receive physical therapy for endless reasons and the interventions can be just as diverse. Though it’s tempting to serve as an “every man”, (and certainly if you’re just starting out, you can’t exactly turn away revenue), finding your niche can help you stand out and really deliver great outcomes. Is sports therapy your forte? Will you treat primarily children or geriatric patients? Perhaps spinal care is where you feel most at home.

Knowing where your talents lie can help you better direct your treasures. That means purchasing the right equipment, marketing appropriately, developing strong professional relationships, and mastering insurance billing. It can also help you stand out in your local market and meet an otherwise unfulfilled need for the community.

2. Find the Right Software Stack

No practice can operate efficiently (and in some cases, legally) without an EHR (electronic health record). And, on the other hand, the wrong EHR can slow down your business, frustrating staff and patients. Here are a few things to look for when shopping around for EHR vendors.

• Specialty-specific– as a physical therapist, you and your patients have different needs than a general practitioner – or any other kind of practitioner for that matter. And your software should meet those specific needs. The design and interface of the software should match your workflows and thought processes.
• Billing functionality– though you got into business to help people, the cash flow of your clinic is what allows you to keep doing the good work that you do. Make sure your EHR is equipped with the tools and staff you need to not only bill and file claims but also manage revenue and follow up on claims.
• Credit card processing– an often overlooked feature when it comes to choosing an EHR, having credit card processing integrated directly into your EHR saves time and eliminates the need for after-the-fact reconciliation.
• Telehealth and client portal– regardless of what the future holds, the COVIDpandemic forever changed the way we deliver healthcare. A telehealth offering is becoming more of the norm ever for physical, occupational, and speech therapy, and patients are coming to expect it. Continue to deliver care with integrated telehealth. You may find it opens doors for your clinic by allowing you to broaden the geographical radius of patients you can serve and by preventing missed appointments for patients who may be anxious, have transportation concerns, face mobility challenges, or any other roadblocks to in-person appointments. A client portal likewise helps bridge the gap between patient and provider by offering document transfer, the ability to view records, and secure messaging.
• Intuitive design and great service– what good is onboarding a new software system if it’s too difficult to understand or takes too much time to manage. Don’t let promised functionality take away from your EHRs ROI, find something that’s a pleasure to use. Onboarding should be a breeze, your staff should be adequately trained, and support should be helpful and readily available.

3. Build Your Dream Team

There’s so much more involved in running a successful therapy practice than fantastic patient care. You’ll need to master patient relations, understand software, make sure billing and claims are handled appropriately. So, if you think you’re going to need some extra hands, now is the time to begin your search.

Think strategically about the needs of your practice. Understand if it’s more important to hire a jack-of-all-trades office admin superstar or could you benefit from another provider to double the patient load and bring in revenue to cover overhead. Maybe there’s a particular specialty that would be valuable to have on board.

From there, start reaching out to your network. Ask for referrals to find stellar candidates and start interviewing.

4. Iron Out Billing

Likely, revenue will come from a mix of patient responsibility and insurance payments. Since cash flow is what’s going to keep your business afloat. Here are a few ways to make sure both are working for your new practice.

Patient Responsibility

• Offer credit card processing -the ability to accept credit cards is not only more convenient for our patients it can help you capture otherwise lost revenue and prevent missed payments.
• Write and post a payment policy– it’s easy for patients to get confused about what is their responsibility, especially if they’re using insurance to cover some of your services. Write an easy-to-understand payment policy and include it with all new patient paperwork and clearly post it in your office.
• Automate patient statements – patient statements, whether sent by email or snail mail are an important part of capturing revenue from self-pay patients, but they can be a real drain on your admin staff and postage costs can really add up. Find a service that automates this process for you.

Insurance Billing

• Determine what payers you will work with – do some research to find out who the common providers are in your area.
• Enrollment and credentialing– before you can start accepting payment from payers you will need to be credentialed and follow through with their enrollment, a process that can take several months, so make sure to start well before you plan on billing.
• Learn the codes– when it comes to billing and submitting claims to your insurance providers, make sure to study up on your billing codes to avoid denials and rejections.
• Master your revenue cycle– denied and rejected claims can drastically slow down revenue generation. And, as accounts receivable age, they depreciate, so it’s important to get paid as quickly and as easily as possible. Now is the time to learn how to resolve denials, or decide if you’d like to work with a third-party service like a clearinghouse or billing services offered through your EHR.5.

Get Strategic About Marketing

Marketing may seem like an alien landscape, especially if you’re more focused on providing stellar patient care than driving leads. But understanding marketing basics and taking care of those needs now can set your practice up for success.

Start with your brand. Determine what sets your practice apart from others in the area -and back it up with proof and values. Then, find a way to represent these values in assets like your logo, website, print materials, etc.

Once your fundamentals are in place, start getting the word out there. Set some goals andlay out a strategy and timeline for achieving them. Here are some ideas:

• Schedule meetings with local physicians and prepare leave-behind materials to build relationships and secure referrals.
• Post on social media.
• Grab a spot on the local drive-time radio.
• Mail a postcard to residents near your office.
• Start sending a customer newsletter.

Marketing possibilities are endless. Start with what will give you the most bang for your buck, keep an eye on the results, and optimize as you go.

Here for the Long Run

Building strong foundations prior to the launch of your clinic allows you to blaze a clear path for the future. Have a software partner that not only helps you navigate that path but that solves problems and facilitates growth. Fusion is a full-featured, specialty-specific EHR designed specifically with physical, occupational, and speech therapists in mind. Get a demo and see how we can support your new clinic.

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Fusion is an end-to-end physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy software program specifically designed to meet the unique needs of pediatric therapists. Each of the software’s features merges to create an easy all-in-one practice management solution that helps you streamline and better oversee your pediatric physical therapy practice to take it to the next level.

Benefits of Fusion: End-to-End Physical Therapy Software

Imagine being able to integrate all key processes into a user-friendly clinic management platform. You’ll free up crucial time during your day so you can better focus on your patients and other areas of your practice.

Fusion lets you integrate the following functions:

• Therapy scheduling
• Therapy billing
• Therapy reporting
• Therapy documentation

You can manage your entire clinic using practice management software that was designed specifically for pediatric clinics.

Streamlined Scheduling

Fusion provides a fully integrated calendar that lets you manage your practice’s schedules. The click and drag calendar enables rapid updates and lets you effortlessly edit your appointments, set recurring appointments, and send out automated appointment reminders.

Using the color-code preset appointment types in the program, you can peruse your week with a simple glance. You can even customize your own color code.

With multiple viewing options, you’ll rapidly compare your staff schedules, examine therapists’ calendars and sort everything via specialty or location.

Improved Documentation

We understand the importance of staying on top of all documentation and Fusion helps you with the software’s pediatric-specific documentation system.

• Built-in pediatric templates save time with evaluations and daily notes.
• Track patient progress with easy-to-read graphs
• View daily notes and develop progress graphics that outline individual patient reports
• Record assessments using pre-built templates of popular standardized tests

Improved Billing

Billing is a notoriously tedious process. With Fusion therapy practice management software, you’ll get paid quicker because the entire billing system becomes fully integrated.

Carry out the following tasks with ease:

• Auto-generate claims every time you complete documentation for every appointment. The claim becomes tied to the daily note.
• Complete all claims within minutes.
• Electronically complete and review claims with the specialized automated E.O.B. system.
• Process master bills for any third-party payers for faster payer consolidation.
• Rapid online payment processing using the integrated credit card processor to handle patient payments within the EMR.

Real-Time Insights

We know that you want to optimize the performance of your practice. Fusion provides real-time insights coupled with easy-to-use reporting. You can utilize the provided snap-shot view, so you know what’s going on and how best to use your time each day. The improved processes help aid in your decision-making.

You’ll be able to monitor, track and analyze who, what, where, when, why, and how throughout your clinic. You can then create reports that measure and evaluate particular time periods to provide a complete overview, so you know what truly works and what has failed.

Take the reports that you create to review with your team or export the data for future use. You’ll stay on top of all of the details so you can determine how best to proceed with your practice, so you continue meeting and exceeding your short-term and long-term goals.

Fusion: Complete Practice Management Software

Above, we have provided you with the basic benefits of Fusion Practice Management Software, but there is a lot more to the platform than what we have listed so far. We know you’re busy with pediatric pt. and other aspects of care. Using Fusion helps free you to focus on your passions and limit the amount of time you have to spend on mundane, business-related tasks.

Added benefits of Fusion Practice Management Software include:

• Ability to auto-create tasks
• Control workflows
• Easily onboard new therapists and collaborate together
• Track the progress of new therapists
• In-app messaging
• Improved team collaboration
• Rapidly receive answers to patient progress and status updates online while supporting complete HIPAA compliance.

Enjoy Peace of Mind

Running a pediatric practice means that you have to toe the line by following all HIPAA regulations. You must always maintain government-level security.  Fusion takes the worry out of the process by complying with all HIPAA regulations and maintaining complete security features to meet all government requirements.

Also, if the unthinkable should happen and you face a stress-filled audit, rest assured that all information is legible and easily accessible whenever you need it.

About Fusion

We want you to know our dedication. A group of skilled engineers and pediatric therapists designed and created Fusion when it became clear that there was a need in therapy for a truly stellar EMR with optimum progress monitoring.

Fusion took years to perfect. The all-in-one pediatric therapy software is now trusted by clinics throughout the country. It effectively keeps data and documents safe and secure within the Fusion cloud and lets clinics easily access the information anytime and anywhere from a variety of devices.

At this time, Fusion is trusted by over 10,000 medical professionals and is used in over 1,000 clinics nationwide. That number is also growing on a daily basis.

See What Others Say About Fusion

Fusion remains the only all-in-one pediatric practice management EMR and billing software available on the market. We invite you to take a few moments to read the many testimonials about the practice management software. You’ll also find video testimonials outlining exactly how Fusion has helped other therapists transform their practice.

If we have piqued your interest in Fusion Practice Management software, then we invite you to sign up for a demo today. We are confident that Fusion supplies the solutions you have been looking to truly optimize all aspects of your billing processes. With Fusion, you can take your clinic to a new level of expertise.

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Your revenue cycle is what keeps the lights on at your pediatric therapy clinic. You provide care, submit claims, and get paid. It’s a bit more complex than that, but those are the basics of the revenue model. And optimizing those steps are essential in order for your practice to thrive.

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A pediatric therapy clinic needs a healthy cash flow in order to be sustainable. The revenue cycle affects nearly every area of a practice, from employee payroll to quality of care. Managing the revenue cycle may not be the most exciting part of running a clinic, but it serves as a foundation for everything you do. A well-managed revenue cycle will support a growing, thriving practice.

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If you’re a private pediatric therapy clinic owner, you started your practice because you love helping and healing. Seeing a child’s life improve because of the work you do is fulfilling. And even if some days are stressful, you probably love providing care. But financial management? Maybe not so much.

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The claims process can be a constant source of frustration for pediatric therapy clinics. If a claim is delayed or denied, the clinic won’t get paid in a timely manner — and may not get paid at all. Cash flow suffers, ultimately impacting the clinic’s success.

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Most therapists are familiar with the 8-Minute Rule, but if you’d like a refresher (or want to make sure you understand the details), this article breaks down everything from common mistakes to mixed remainders.

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Your passion is helping kids, and you can’t help anyone if you go out of business. Trouble with collections can cause serious cash flow issues down the line. Does your pediatric therapy clinic have this problem?

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Should you outsource therapy billing or use clinic billing software to do it in-house?

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