It doesn’t come as a surprise when chiropractors feel that a lot of mundane things get in the way of their desire to take care of both their patients and their practice. If you feel this way, know that you’re not alone.
Few people believe that part of the key to success is looking outside the chiropractic bubble and observing what other healthcare professionals are doing, and how well they’re doing it. This tactic helps us to focus not only on the problems that we’re facing but the possible solutions that accompany them. And we can do this without having to reinvent our entire practice.
The list published recently by Medical Economics reveals the list of major issues and challenges that medical doctor’s face which was generated by surveying the physician readers. When compared to what chiropractors struggle with we’ve noticed that the problems are pretty similar.
So, we made out a list of the top five challenges that Chiropractors in Colorado Springs have to deal with on an almost regular basis.
1.Government Regulations
Due to the never-ending and sometimes overwhelming onslaught of HIPAA, Medicare, and several other federal mandated rules, lots of professionals are driven out of the profession or at least out of their comfort zone. If some of the regulations are affecting your ability to work efficiently, then just know that you’re not alone. Chiropractor Colorado Springs treatment plans are sometimes affected by them.
2.Paperwork and Administrative Burdens
This category pretty much summarizes about 90 percent of chiropractor’s complaints. From documentation to insurance-related items, it’s the endless paperwork that slowly drives away many chiropractors desire to treat patients effectively. Chiropractors aren’t exempt from these burdens.
3.The Inability to Negotiate Leverage with Payers
This particular issue reveals a situation where it’s worse to be an MD than a DC. While MD’s were able to negotiate their rates with payers in the past, it isn’t the same for them anymore. Since our profession is relatively small, we’ve always had zero leverage for the most part against payers. Although, there’s a growing minority of states that are now able to assert their influence and attain better laws and contract rates with their payers.
Even though this is a step in the right direction, we still have a relatively long way to go before getting to the negotiating status of major medical groups and hospitals.
4.Reimbursement Imbalances
In some parts of the country, like Washington for example, “Equal Provider” laws have successfully negotiated the terms for equal payments between DC’s and MD for performing the same services. Despite this achievement, there are still some places that experience significant pay gaps even though the CPT code might be identical. It’s still an improvement from what we had before, but as I said before, there’s still a long way to go before things can be perfect.
5.Increasing Staff and Overhead Costs
The increase in administrative and paperwork burden has not surprisingly led to the hiring of more staffs and higher overheads to help keep up with everything. Several Chiropractors are affected by this development, albeit on a lesser scale.
A lot of chiropractors would agree that the bulk of the issues they face and the ones on the list are insurance related. Unfortunately, the solution isn’t something as simple as dropping out of their insurance altogether (that would be impractical), but working strategically to look for ways to improve the process.
