Why shouldn't I buy rehab equipment and do the program myself?

Many physicians say: "Why can't we do this ourselves?" We respond: "You can!" Then we say: "But why would you want to do it yourself if we can make it so much easier for you?" If you are seriously thinking about adding this type of service to your practice and are considering doing it yourself, here are a few things you to need to do:

You need to decide what equipment would make sense for your practice. Then, shop for that equipment, find the best price, order it and hope you make the right decision with regards to dependability, durability and reimbursement. Or you could use the equipment we recommend, which is cost effective, efficient, and user- and reimbursement- friendly. We sell you the equipment at our cost, because we charge for our consulting which makes you money. Because we buy in bulk, you won't be able to beat the prices we can get for you.

You will have to study available case management guides and references. This will ensure that you and the other partners/staff members are ordering appropriate care with regards to acceptable frequency, duration, protocols and ICD-9s that you have assigned to that patient. We suggest you simply have one of our consultants train you and your staff on effaceable case management.

You will also need to study the CPT Guides and the ICD-9 Reference text. This will help you understand what codes are appropriately driven by the ICD-9s you choose for the patients you see. Further, you will want to make certain that you are appropriately reporting the services you are providing with the correct CPT codes. We train you and your staff on ALL the pertinent CPT and ICD-9 codes, so you don't waste valuable treatment time in research. Or, heaven forbid, you use the wrong codes and have serious problems in an audit.

You should also study the Time-based Coding section of the Federal Register. This way you can be more certain that you are not violating any federal regulations with regards to the appropriate times in the provision of Therapeutic Procedures. We've already done all this work for you!

You will need to effectively verify insurance benefits for these new services. This can be very time consuming and there is a lot of room for error. We train your staff how to get the answers your office needs from the insurance companies…quickly, so they can communicate the benefits to the patients in a timely manner.

You will want to learn how to negotiate benefits with the patients better. This will cause them to accept and more important, willingly pay for this added care. We train you and your staff how to get patients to confront the payment and more pleasantly pay their bill.

You will need to learn how to bill and collect efficiently for your services. You will want to avoid all the typical mistakes other physicians make that cause bundling, cascading payments, and demands for refunds. We have been in this business for close to 16 years, so we can help reduce your denials and ensure more expedient payments.

You may want to consider hiring a "high-powered" (i.e., expensive) Healthcare Law firm. You will definitely want to make sure you have very good legal research done (especially if you want to bill Medicare). We've already spent tens of thousands of dollars for opinion letters on the legality and efficacy of our program and how you can you can implement it in your practice as an in-office ancillary service and not run afoul of the authorities, Stark, Anti-kickback Laws, etc. Save your time and money, and do it right; use our legal research team's "reasoned analysis". The money we will save you in legal fees alone would probably pay for the program!

This list could go on and on, but I think you get the point. The bottom line is that by the time you get a legal opinion and figure out what equipment to buy, we will have made you enough money to pay for all of our consulting services, including the equipment!

What if I am already very busy and may not have the time?

Time should not be an issue, we have several solutions. If you can handle an increase in your practice, the SHS Program is the equivalent of a 10% increase in business (i.e., the number of patients seen for evaluations and management or typical office visits). However, instead of only a 10% increase in revenue, the SHS program can generate a 100%-200% increase in your income.

If you don't have any extra time to spend with additional patients, you can either reduce your patient load by 10% or reduce the time you spend with your patients by 10%. In other words, you can spend less time with your existing patients or the same amount of time with fewer patients, which will allow you to work the same number of hours. This way, you spend the same amount of time in the office, but double or triple your income!

If you want to cut back and spend less time in the office and more time on the golf course or with your family, the added income from the SHS Program will allow you to hire someone (depending on your office statistics; either a MA, PA, or PT) to handle some of your patient load. This will give you more free time, or you can simply see fewer patients, because you are making more money and don't need to see as many to survive. Remember, a PT can do most of the work, so you don't need to spend as much time seeing patients.

What if I don't have enough space for the program?

There are various ways to solve the "space" issue. If you want a permanent room, all that is needed is a room that is at least 8' x 10'. Most doctors convert one of their exam rooms into a mini-rehab room. Others, if they don't feel they can give up an exam room, use their private office (which isn't making them any money anyway).

Other doctors have decided to use our "mobile" PT Center. This concept allows you to simply roll the main equipment components into an empty exam room where you already have an exam table for the patient to lie on if necessary. Whether you use one of your exam rooms, convert your private office or use the mobile system, space is usually a problem that can be overcome with a little ingenuity. I am sure, for an extra $200,000-$300,000 a year, you can become very ingenious.

If you really don't have any space in your office that can be used for the program, you may be able to rent space from someone in your building. According to Federal Statues, if your hire a PT in Private Practice (PTPP), you can refer your patients to them, even if they are not in your office. They can be in another office in your building or down the street. As long as your practice is the one leasing the space, you can put the PT in it and still bill as if they were in your office. You could even contact other healthcare professionals and offer to pay them rent on one of their treatment rooms (assuming they have one they aren't currently using) and put your PT in their office. There are many ways to solve the "space" challenge. Give us a call to discuss your situation.

What if I feel like I can't afford the program?

This program isn't going to cost you money; it's going to make you money. If you don't want to commit to a lease or financing program, you can take advantage of our risk-free License Program, where we purchase the equipment, install it in your office, and train you and your staff how to implement the program. You then pay us a small percentage of the revenues you generate from the program. No revenue, no payments.

If you purchase the program, your payments can be as low as $635 a month. Each patient is conservatively worth approximately $1,000 to you. So, one patient more than covers your payment for the month.

If you take advantage of our Premium SHS Package, the revenue from the NCV testing and ROM muscle testing alone will earn you between $5,000 and $10,000 a month which is in addition to your therapy revenue. Plus, you won't have to provide the tests, a member of your staff will. The diagnostic testing will generate enough revenue to pay for the entire SHS program, your physical therapist, and then some!

What if I can't find a Physical Therapist?

If you follow our "Simple & Easy System for Attracting Qualified Physical Therapists", you will have no problem finding several PTs who will want to work with you. In this program, we help you locate PTs and structure their compensation package.

The secret to the program that makes it easy to find a PT who wants to work with you is the compensation package. Simply put: offer them 25% of what you anticipate earning in the first year (i.e., $300,000-$500,000), with a guaranteed net income that equals their current salary.

The PT can't lose. Worst case scenario is they earn the same as they are currently earning. Best case scenario is they can earn $100,000-$150,000 a year on a percentage of your SHS revenues. Who wouldn't want the opportunity to double or triple their current income?

The PT should love this package because: (1) they are guaranteed what they are currently earning; and (2) they have a large upside potential for additional revenue from the percentage portion of their package. They can even work nights and weekends it they want to earn more money. It's like having their own business without the hassle of owning one (very appealing to a PT).

What if I can't afford a Physical Therapist?

That's easy; don't hire one initially. Start testing and providing services using a current staff member or someone other than a PT who is licensed to provide therapy (an MA, PA, Nurse Practitioner, etc.). Once you are up and running, you can then hire the PT.

If you have a large number of Medicare patients, you will want to hire a PT sooner than later. You can't get paid for Medicare unless you have a PT on staff doing the therapy "incident to" your recommendation.

Truthfully, you can't afford not to hire a PT. They are going to make you at least three times what you pay them (if they are on a percentage program). Remember, one patient is worth about $1,000. So, it only takes about 5 patients to cover their base. The rest of their compensation is out of added revenue. Most doctors don't realize that the PT will also be able to perform the therapy when the doctor is away (vacation, conferences, family time, etc.). In a nutshell, the PT makes you money and gives you freedom, while you are there or not.

If you take advantage of our program where you place your PT in another healthcare professional's office to manage them, they may be willing in the beginning to share the cost of the PT with you. There is always a way to solve these challenges.

How do I know the SHS Program works?

You know that some of your patients already need or want physical therapy and you are already referring them out to specialists or PT centers. You know that other professionals provide physical therapy and rehab and that someone must be paying these PTs and rehab centers to provide this therapy or they wouldn't be in business. So, there shouldn't be any doubt that providing physical therapy works! All we are doing is changing where the physical therapy is going to be provided and who is going to be overseeing it… You and your staff or PT!

In addition to patients you currently refer out for PT, you probably have many more patients that you are prescribing anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxants to or are treating with joint injections or prolotherapy. Many of these patients are candidates for the SHS Program too.

Providing PT in your office makes it more convenient for your patients and they feel more comfortable knowing that you are overseeing their meds and physical therapy at the same time. The good news is that patients don't normally use as many drugs, if they are getting this type of care which decreases unintended consequences of drug therapy.

Then, when you query all of your patients with our proprietary Pain Analysis Survey, you will find that about 25% of the rest of your patients are also suffering from musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and 25% of those patients will want to go into therapy if they are presented with that option. This means that in addition to the patients you know have pain, because they came in requesting a solution to that problem, there are many more who would like a solution to the problem they are telling you about.

What if my staff doesn't like it or want to do it?

They won't if you are going to ask them to work harder and still not pay them what they feel they are worth. You've heard it before: They are already over worked and under paid. If you are like most practices, that is probably a true statement. I'm sure you would like to pay them more, but with reimbursements being cut and overheads going up, you just can't…right now.

The truth is that if you don't incentivize your staff, it will be far more difficult to get them to want to do this program. To work harder without some reward for doing so will cause most people to resist the new activity. That is why you will want to take good care of them. And with SHS, you'll be able to afford to.

Our "Staff Incentive Plan" suggests that you pay them $2-$3 for each Pain Analysis Survey they get a patient to complete. If you are a typical practice, seeing about 100 patients a week that means it would cost you about $800-$1,200 a month to get surveys from 400 patients. Since approximately 5%-10% of those patients will need or want therapy, that means you would earn about $20,000-$40,000 a month and have to pay your survey person about $1,000. That seems like a good investment to me.

Being a good and caring doctor, I'm sure it has bothered you that you haven't been able to reward your current staff for their hard work, because "you can't afford it." This program will give you an opportunity to "share the wealth." We will help you figure out how to legally reward them for the additional work they will be doing for this program (which actually won't be that much).

What if my billing person doesn't think the codes will work or that we will get paid?

Just like with other staff members, if there isn't anything in it for them, they will probably try to figure out a way to get you to "think it over." Or, they will claim that they don't think you can or will get paid. A billing company will be more encouraging, because they probably stand to benefit from the increased revenue. But a staff member or in-house billing person is probably not going to be very interested in your new found revenue.

We have been teaching coding and compliance for more than 10 years and have thoroughly investigated the codes you will be using…and the fact that you will get paid for them. More than once, a doctor's billing person has said: "They will never pay us for this." And, once we call a few of the doctor's insurance carriers, we prove to the doctor that he or she WILL get reimbursed. Of course, everyone is shocked.

If you don't currently provide physical therapy and are still uncertain as to whether you can or will get paid by Medicare, insurance companies or worker's compensation, we would be willing to put our money where our mouth is and offer to verify coverage for a few of your patients with your carriers. In order for you to take advantage of our SHS Insurance Verification Program, we have two requirements: (1) you sign an agreement that gives us the right to call your carriers about your patients on your behalf; and (2) you put up a good faith deposit that will be returned if we can't prove that you can get paid or we will apply it to the SHS Program when you purchase it.

I already have a successful business, why should I consider adding SHS Programs to my practice?

To answer this question it comes down to how you measure success. What we have found is that most doctors don't own a true business but a job…doing it, doing it, doing it…hoping like hell to get some time off, but never figuring out how to get their practice to run without them.

Are You Always Reacting To Something Outside of You?

• Does Your Practice Run You, or Do You Run It?
• Does Your Job Run You, or Do You Run It?
• Do Your Employees Run You, or Do You Run Them?
• Does Your Life Run You, or Do You Run Your Life?
  

So, when is enough, ENOUGH?! Would it sound unrealistic if you could work the same number of hours a week and make 200% more income? Would it sound equally unrealistic if you were working less and making 100% more income? A typical measure of one's success is the amount of freedom one can have and the money to support the activities of that freedom. Having SHS Programs in your office allows for either scenario and will give you more money, more time, or both.

Most Doctors don't think of themselves as businesspeople-and that's the problem. Because that's exactly what they have to be to own a practice. In fact, most practices fail to fulfill their potential not because of the Doctor's medical skills, or because of what's going on outside the medical practice, such as managed care, defiant insurers, and increased costs.

Rather, they fail because Doctors are not prepared for what is about to happen to them. They are simply unprepared for the business of medicine. Victims of an "entrepreneurial seizure," they believe that because they understand how to do the technical work-the work of a Doctor-they understand how to build a successful business that does that work.

The truth is that leaning how to be a Doctor does not prepare you to develop a successful medical practice. Knowing how a practice works best has little to do with knowing how a Doctor works best.

In fact, it's the chasm between being a Doctor and an entrepreneur (a true businessperson) that is the primary cause of the malaise, disaffection, and frustration experienced by most Doctors who own their own practice.

No matter how much you know about the work of doctoring, none of that expertise is in itself sufficient to build a successful practice, business or enterprise. It's only the beginning.

According to a highly respected book called The E-Myth, the key to transforming your practice-and your life-is to grasp the profound difference between going to work on your practice (Systems Thinker) and going to work in your practice (Tactical Thinker). It's the different between going to work on your practice as an entrepreneur and going to work in your practice as a Doctor.

That's the purpose here. To address the value of your life, not only the life of a medical professional but the life of you as a human being. It's our contention that the vast majority of medical professionals today are spending this life fruitlessly-less enjoyably than ever in the history of modern medicine, with less appreciation from patients, less appreciation from the public and less appreciation from their families.

Money, Happiness, Life-they all come down to how well your practice works. Not how well you work.

Whether money takes the form of Income, Profits, Flow or Equity, the amount of it-and how much of it stays with you-will always depend on how well your practice works. Not on your people, not on you, but on the system.

Your practice holds the secret to more money. Are you ready to learn how to find it?

Most Doctors are not entrepreneurs; they are not truly businesspeople but technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. Their philosophy of coping with the workload can be summarized as "Just do it." In other words, thoughtless action instead of figuring out how to do things through other people using innovative systems to produce consistent results.

We have spoken to countless small practitioners whose hopes weren't being realized through their practice; whose lives were consumed by work; who slaved increasingly longer hours for decreasing pay; whose dissatisfaction grew as their enjoyment shriveled; whose practice had become the worst job in the world; whose money was out of control; whose employees were a source of never-ending hassles…just like their patients, their bank, and, increasingly, even their family.

More and more, these Doctors spent their time alone, dreading the unknown, anxious about the future. And even when they were with people, they didn't know how to relax. Their mind was always on the job. They were distracted by work, by the thought of work. By the fear of falling behind.

And yet, when confronted with their condition and offered an alternative, most of these same Doctors strenuously resisted. They assumed that if there were a better way of doing business, they already would have figured it out. They derived comfort from knowing that they believed they already knew. They accepted the limitation of being a Doctor; the limitations of what they should expect from patients, employees, other Doctors, even family and friends.

In short, most Doctors I've met over the years would rather live with the frustrations they already have than risk enduring new frustrations which may result in a better way of life.

Isn't that true of most people you know? Rather than opening up to the infinite number of possibilities life offers, they prefer to impose limits, to erect barriers, to shut their life down to respectable limits. And, after all, isn't that the most reasonable way to live?

We think not. Experience tells us that we have to learn to let go. I think that if we fail to embrace change, it will inevitable destroy us. Conversely, by opening ourselves to change, we give our practice the opportunity to get the most from our talents.

Remember, there are three kinds of people: (1) those who make things happen, (2) those who let things happen, and (3) those who wonder what happened. The people who make things happen are masters of change. The other two are its victims.

Which type are you?

I don't have time to think about this right now?

When will you have the time…next week, next month, next year? The insurance companies are trying to pay you less and less, so you have to work harder and harder to make the same (or less) money. Do you think you will have MORE free time a few months from now to think about this…or less?

Michael Gerber, a well known and respected author of The E-Myth Physician: Why Most Medical Practices Don't Work and What To Do About It says: "Most doctors are too busy working IN their practices, instead of working ON their practices." We couldn't agree more. We understand that you don't have the time to do everything it takes to make your practice as successful as possible, because you are busy helping patients be as healthy as they can be. That is why we are in business…to help you!

Your challenge is to let us do what we do best…helping doctors help themselves. Don't delay making this decision. Instead of wishing and hoping, or looking high and low for a better deal, let us show you how to make an extra million or two before the government figures out a way to stop you from providing physical therapy in your office.

If you really want to change where you are at this time in your life, I would like to give you one person's definition of insanity: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results." SHS may not be right for you, but you should decide that now…not later. If you are seriously interested in working less and/or making more, I have a question for you: