Cash Practice® Staff Member- Laura

This edition of Get to Know a Cash Practice® Staff Member we are going to let everyone get to know the Director of Merchant Accounts, Laura!

Laura is one of the original staff members of Cash Practice® who has been here since the beginning. Like most of the staff members here, she started working in 2003 as the back office CA in Dr. Bodzin’s chiropractic office one day a week. When Holly went on maternity leave in November 2004, Laura had a crash course on front office, back office and insurance. Once Holly returned,  Laura continued with the duties in the back office and insurance. In January of 2007 she began working for Cash Practice® in the corner of the back office of the chiropractic office. As the company continued to grow, she transitioned into her role as Director of Merchant Services and now has her own office in the new Cash Practice® Corporate Headquarters office. Laura is a dedicated mother of two beautiful and talented girls. Putting in many hours of hard work and thousands of miles traveling to countless seminars, Laura has worked her way up from working one day at the chiropractic office to becoming the head of a department for our growing company. I asked her some questions that would help you all get to know her just a little bit better!

 

• Official Cash Practice Duties: As Director of Merchant Services, I oversee the merchant account application process to ensure that the merchant accounts are setup properly and in a timely manner. I also work directly with the processing bank on behalf of the merchant should any issues or questions arise.
• Unofficial Cash Practice Duties/Titles: Water Bottler Changer, Math Wizard, Proof Reader and Sticky Note Queen
• Favorite Moment with Cash Practice®: Field Trips! I love the bonding time we share as an office, when we go out to lunch for someone’s birthday or paint ceramics!
• Funniest moment with Cash Practice: Well anytime I travel with Holly it’s always filled with funny memories! (Sorry, Laura said I can’t share those details on here!)
• Questions that you’re the best at answering when it comes to Cash Practice: I can answer anything from questions about charges on your bank statement or merchant processing applications, to PCI questions, to explanation of rates, basically anything that is merchant services related.
• What you seen in the future for Cash Practice: I know that I am part of a great company that provides a great service and will continue to grow and help chiropractic office’s not just in our nation, but hopefully around the world one day!!!
• Favorite thing about working at Cash Practice: My favorite thing about working for CashPractice® has to be the flexibility. Being a single mom is not always easy, but I have never missed an Awards Assembly, Talent Show, Track Meet, Nomination Speech, Field Hockey Game or anything else my girls are involved in.
• Strangest/funniest call/question you have gotten: In setting up the merchant accounts, I asked the Member what his corporation status was. The Member replied, “I’m single”
• Cash Practice “Blooper” or “Boo Boo”: Laura claims that she is 99.9% perfect LOL
• Something you have done that you are most proud of since working at CP: Starting from a corner in the chiropractic office to having my own office as a department head at CashPractice® Headquarters, I have had to create procedures and manuals for every aspect of the merchant services department as the company has grown. It’s easy to come into a company where the procedures have already been put into place. I’m proud to say that I have built the merchant services department into what it is today.

Laura and her daughters

Laura on her Birthday yesterday!

 

Care Credit says…

Thought I would post a great article here that Dr. Bodzin wrote!

CareCredit® Says “No More Prepays”.  I Say, “So What!”

Did you get the letter?  CareCredit®, a finance company that many chiropractors have used for years to provide financing to their patients, sent out a letter in October 2009 stating that it will no longer allow doctors to do prepays.

They go on to say in the letter, “In an effort to improve patient satisfaction, we will be …”.  It appears there have been too many situations where a patient has stopped care and stopped making payments to them.

When a patient stops care early, the patient must be refunded the money for the unused services.   Not doing so is a big no-no.  Apparently there have been “dissatisfied patients”.  One can only assume the patients are complaining to CareCredit because the doctor is not making the appropriate refunds, thus leaving CareCredit holding the bag; hence the reason for the letter.  CareCredit stated in their letter that they will only allow services to be paid for on a per-visit basis.

So what are your alternatives to using CareCredit?  Well, before I address that questions, I’d like to discuss whether prepays are even a good idea at all.  Let’s start with the end in mind.  What is the outcome we are looking for when we use prepays as a method of payment?  What are we trying to accomplish?

In interviewing doctors who do prepays, the goal is quite clear – get the patient to commit to care and pay for it upfront so they are “committed to care”.   The idea being, if they just pay for it all upfront, they won’t quit care.  OK, I get that.  There is some truth to that.  People who do prepay tend to stay longer.  But what about after the initial care plan is up?  What about wellness care?

When I then ask these same docs how many of your prepay patients renew for wellness care plans, they admit it’s not so great.  Let me go back to the question, “what are we trying to accomplish?”  Let me answer this one for you.  “We are trying to accomplish the goal of creating life-time wellness patients.”  Am I wrong in saying that when it comes to caring for our patients, the mission of chiropractic is to get them well, and then help maintain that wellness with ongoing chiropractic care for life?

In fact, when I press these docs, we find that even though they tend to see higher volume and their PVA is higher than average due to patients staying longer, they still need just as many new patients each and every month as they did years ago to keep their revenue up.  My point is if their patients were staying for life-time wellness care, eventually you should get to the point where you were full; where you wouldn’t need as many new ones to keep your revenue up.  But they do – and here is why.  The vast majority of patients who prepay for care do not continue beyond the initial program of care.   The patient simply “decides” not to renew.

I emphasized the word “decide”, because that is the key to understanding why prepays are sabotaging the health of your practice.  I have discovered something very interesting.  Although prepays commit someone to their initial care plan, they also create a situation where a patient will “have to decide” on going on to the next program of care when the prepay lapses.  Its the “decision” they have to make that gets in the way of them continuing.

Prepays create an obstacle to the mission of chiropractic.  They are a subluxation to the health of your practice; the side effect being difficulty in transition patients to wellness care.  Imagine you’re the patient who just finished a program a care – for example you just finished 12-months of care you paid $3,600 for last year.  And your chiropractor is now telling you, “John, good news you’re ready for wellness care.  The new program is $1,800.”  The fact is, your last payment made was a year ago and you now have a decision to make.  Do I continue or not?  Do I want to buy again or not?  I’m no longer in pain (yes, they still think about pain) – do I value wellness enough to commit again?

Some (not many) will renew.  But this is where most prepay patients drop out.  The fact that they are being asked to make a decision, is the issue.  Couple that decision with the fact that it involves money and you will soon see why most patients drop out at this time.   And beside the point, if chiropractic is about life-time wellness, when did anyone every pay for anything life-time all up front.

Here’s the bottom line.  The more situations you have where a patient has to “decide” on whether they continue with care or not, the more often patients leave you.   I’ve identified several common areas this takes place in a practice.  The most common among them all is in the area of money.  I discovered that “the more often a patient has to think about money, the more often they drop out”.  Let me clarify – it’s not the money that’s at issue.  It’s the “thinking” about the money that’s the issue.

The more often a patient has to think about money, the more often they will be making a decision about buying your care.  This is why practices that have patients pay-per-visit have the lowest patient retention and practically zero percent on wellness care.  Are there exceptions?  Of course.  But we’re not talking exceptions to the rule.  It’s not smart to build you business model on exceptions.

Then there’s the office that has patients pay for block of care – 12 visits at a time.  Although these offices have better retention than a pay-per-visit model, they too have nearly zero percent on wellness.   The doctor doing there often says they feel like they are always reselling the need for care.  Well, that’s because they are.

Then there’s the prepay for a period of time (like a 12 month prepay).  Again, these offices have an even better retention and even have some people on wellness care.  But as I’ve already stated, we see the vast majority of patients drop out of care at the end of the prepay.  It’s not that they don’t get chiropractic.  Many of them do.  Have you ever had a patient who got the big idea – and still dropped out?  It’s not how educated they are.  It’s that, as a consumer, they just don’t want to buy again.  They’d rather spend the money on a new flat screen TV.

So what’s the answer?  What if I said there was a financial model that was congruent with the mission of chiropractic stated earlier.  A business model that allowed a patient to easily signup for a program of care, removed the “thinking” about money and allowed the patient to transition to life-time wellness care without a big financial decision to make – a business model that completely removed the subluxation getting in the way of patients electing to continue beyond the initial care plan and onto wellness care.

Without a doubt, we have seen the following model accomplish the goal.  The doctors doing what I am about to share with you have extraordinarily high patient retention.  The vast majority of their patients go on to life-wellness care.  They’re income rises dramatically and becomes consistent month after month – no longer going up and down due fluctuating numbers of new patients each month.  And their staff are happier.

So what’s the model?  Similar to a prepay plan, we offer our patients a program of care over a period of time.  But instead of having the patient prepay for the plan of care, we have them leave a bank account or credit care on file (there is a legal way to do this) and we auto-debit them once per month.  Simple!  The plan we offer actually lets the patient choose either monthly payments, make a larger down payment followed by smaller monthly payments or they can choose to prepay.

So let’s revisit the scenario above where you were the patient ready for wellness care.  “John, good news you’re ready for wellness care; and your $300 monthly payment is going down to only $150 per month.  By the way, the wellness program is month-to-month.  Just let us know if you ever want it to change.”  I think you will agree that seem a whole lot easier to swallow (as a patient) than having to decide to buy again.

Here is what we accomplish with this business model.  (1) The patient can decide which payment option works best for them.  This removes any “pressure” allowing them to feel in control.  (2) Automating the payments removes the repetitive “thinking” about the money. (3) The monthly payment allows you to present good news of the payment going down when the transition to wellness occurs. This is huge.  (4) When they go onto wellness care, you never have to ask them about money again.  (5) Your revenue becomes consistent month after month. (6) Your staff spends much less time collecting money.

So I say, “Who cares if CareCredit no longer allows prepays”.   Get on board with a business model that is congruent with the chiropractic model.  Ongoing wellness care with ongoing monthly auto-debit payments. Check out this previous blog entry for more information: The Benefits of Having a Cash Based Practice or How to Keep Patient’s From Dropping Out of Care When the Insurance Stops

Miles Bodzin, DC
Founder & CEO Cash Practice Inc.
http://www.CashPractice.com
877-FIFTY-50
drbodzin@cashpractice.com

New Features!

As most of you know, we have completely remodeled the way the Auto-Debit Reports Generator™ and the Posted Payment Report Generator™ look. They are much more user friendly and make managing your payments and auto-debits much easier. Take a look!



New Features (Post Payment Report Generator™):

• The most obvious change is that the rows now have colors that are indicators of the transactions status. Green means the payment has been accepted, Yellow means the payment is pending, and Red means that the payment declined.
• Another new feature is now there are easy to understand buttons to the right of the report that allow you to easily perform certain actions.
• By clicking on the blue client name, it will take you to a pop-up window so you can view the clients account without redirecting away from the Report Page.

New Features (Auto- Debit Report Generator™):

• This also has been changed to include the easy-to-understand links to perform certain actions.
• Easy access to Authorization Forms, Payment History, and Billing History
• Like the Posted Payment Report Generator™, the link to the client’s name (shown in blue) will allow access to the client’s account without redirecting you away from the report page

To here Dr. Bodzin go over all of the exciting new features and show you first-hand how they work, you can watch the video of the webinar here.

Get to Know a Cash Practice® Staff Member: Holly

For this edition of Get to Know a Cash Practice® Staff Member there is no one better to start with than our Director of Operations, Holly Jensen. She is truly the backbone of Cash Practice® and we don’t know what we would do without her! Holly first began working in Dr. Bodzin’s chiropractic office in 2001 as a Chiropractic Assistant and quickly moved up to Office Manager. She has been with the company since Dr. Bodzin first created the Cash Practice® website. Since then, she has completely transferred into her role as Director of Operations for Cash Practice® Inc. Holly has carved out many team member positions and has an active role in leading, scripting, training and development of staff and Cash Practice® members.

As a mother of four children and wife of a Navy sailor, Holly is passionate about the value of lifetime chiropractic care. Holly is just as passionate about her career and is rewarded with a strong feeling of accomplishment and gratitude in helping others become successful in providing affordable chiropractic care and education to their community to make the world a happier place.

All of us around the office and even many people we meet at seminars know Holly as someone who is extremely fun to be around and always entertaining. I asked Holly a few questions about her time here at Cash Practice® Inc. that will help all of you to know the Holly that we all know.

Official Cash Practice® Duties: Director of Operations. My Mission statement: My mission as leader is to treat my team with respect and to be supportive. This will be done with a kind heart and a warm smile with encouragement for them to be their best so that we have a stand out company recognized not only for our outstanding product, but also our exceptional service.

Unofficial Cash Practice Titles: Multi-Personalities!  “Professional Holly”, “Party Holly”, “Crazy Holly”, “Prankster Holly”…

Favorite moment with Cash Practice: Oh, there are so many! Dr. Bodin always says, “Work Hard, Play Harder”. So besides the fun times we have in the office I would have to say it’s when we are at seminar, meeting the people I speak to on the phones is awesome. It always results in a hug!

Funniest moment with Cash Practice: on April Fool’s Day we all answered the phones with celebrity names, mine was Chuck Norris! It got some good laughs!

Questions that you’re the best at answering when it comes to Cash Practice: Well, since I am the “Right Hand Man” to Dr. Bodzin, there is a lot that I know…..so for that reason I am a “go to” for all questions.

What you see in the future for Cash Practice: I have been lucky enough to be with CP since day one and have always shared in the vision of the “big picture” with Dr. Bodzin. We’re on that track now and it’s so exciting! The ultimate vision is to be a “must have” business tool needed in order to efficiently and successfully run an office.

Favorite thing about working at Cash Practice: The environment we have here at CP. We’re encouraged to be creative and expressive, which produces loyalty, dependability and quality work. Some of us work in sweats and pj’s while others work all dolled up….and it doesn’t matter because who we’re trying to impress is on the phone, so as long and we have our “professional voices” on that day it’s all good!

Strangest/funniest call/question you have gotten: When someone calls to ask for their password and it’s a dirty word!

Cash Practice “Blooper” or “Boo Boo”: I dont remember to push elevator buttons when in an elevator, so I have gotten off on the same floor several times before realizing the problem.

Something you have done that you are most proud of since working at Cash Practice: Being a CA for several years and having a positive role in patient care was a very rewarding experience, but being able to help the DC’s and CA’s who are providing care to the people in their community is even more rewarding. Knowing that I have a part in the rewarding feelings they are experiencing with their patients makes me  feel good inside! This is the stuff that motivates my passion and enthusiasm for my job!

“Party Holly” in Vegas for The Master’s Circle with Laura, Director of Merchant Accounts

Holly With her Husband Ian.