Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Igniting the Chiropractic Grassroots

To get people excited about Chiropractic in your community you must have two ingredients.

First, you must have a passion for and excitement about chiropractic and its potential to help people yourself. Second, you must find your method to communicate your enthusiasm and excitement to others.

I believe all of us as chiropractors have at one time or another been excited and passionate about what we do. I myself am celebrating my 33rd year as a chiropractor and I can truly say I am excited about what we do and am enthusiastic about our ability to change people’s lives for the better.

In a world where chiropractic is completely misunderstood by the masses, where insurance fights us tooth and nail and where there is hardly time to be running a practice while juggling the demands of family, one can understand loosing ones passion and excitement. Yet, when you have a patient tell you their headaches are gone, their pain of years are gone or thanks to you they do not need surgery, you remember our reason to get excited.

One of my favorite true stories was told to me by a fellow chiropractor several years ago. He had a patient come to him with hiccups. They were so bad and would never stop that he had to sleep in a lazy boy recliner half up. He could not lie down or the hiccups would cut his air supply. He was scheduled for surgery. They were going to cut the phrenic nerve to the diaphragm. After ¬¬three adjustments his hiccups of 7 years stopped. That is something to get excited about.

To get the message to the masses you need to create methods to reach them. My favorite method, and it is the one that helped me build my own practice, is to do lectures. There are literally 100’s of groups in your town that would be interested in workshops, lectures, seminars or programs on a subject related to health.

To reach the most number of groups you need to have topics of interest. Without a doubt more people are interested in weight loss, arthritis, women’ health problem, digestive troubles, insomnia, fibromyalga as well eliminating chronic pain.
The more subjects you can talk on the more groups will have an interest in your subject. Various groups including my own company David Singer Enterprises sell these lectures.

To find the groups in your community to contact, you can get a list of organizations from the Chamber of Commerce, the public library and out of the yellow pages. When contacting them make sure to inform them that as a community service you are making available workshops on different topics to improve the health of those who live in your area.

Inform them the programs are free and your schedules allows only a few programs each month so they should let you know their interest before your schedule fills up.

You can also pass your enthusiasm to your existing patients by telling them your purpose, passion and results you have seen with others. If you let patients know you want to help as many people as possible and that their help in referring people is appreciated, they will send them.

You ask for help and your patients will help when they know you truly care.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

How You Can Prevent a Malpractice Lawsuit

Malpractice lawsuits are based upon the accusation that you caused harm to a patient. This harm could be something that is true or not. You could have caused them to have a broken rib, low back pain, sexual misconduct or a stroke…or they could be making up the entire situation.

You are responsible for malpractice if they can prove you were negligent and failed to do what any of your colleagues would have done.

In other words, if a person is in their forties and you adjusted them the same as any other chiropractor would, and you did all the proper diagnosis and record keeping, you would be innocent of malpractice even though the patient was injured.

The question isn’t whether harm occurred, it’s whether you were negligent in your procedures.

Here is what you could do to prevent malpractice from occurring and to win them if they do.

First, to prevent sexual misconduct charges, always leave your treatment room doors open. The dentists all practice now with half walls so they can not be accused of sexual misconduct. You can also have half walls or open doors that would defend you from sexual misconduct lawsuits that are often untrue.

Staff can testify your policy is doors open during treatment so that no one could accuse you of misconduct.

Second, malpractice suits often can arise as a response or revenge for some upset believed to be your fault. You send a patient to a collection agency, they fail to get results and paid you a lot of money out of their pocket, etc. etc.

First of all you should have a policy that you discontinue care once a patient owes a certain amount or continue to treat them even if they owe you money with the knowledge if you don’t get paid, you will forgive the debt.

If someone gets your insurance check or auto settlement and takes your money you have recourse other than collection agencies. You could keep a credit card on account with permission to run it if they fail to pay. Use a form available from Health Care Payment Solutions that allows for automatic debit from their bank account.

If they fail to pay you money they received for care within five days of receiving it. (This is essential these days and you can contact Health Care Payment Solutions for this and other patient financial programs that are great at 1-866-;;;-;;;;) or you could take them to small claims court for theft of monies.

Obviously, you should keep complete SOAP notes, use gentle adjustment methods on those patients who would most likely be subject to injury and do all proper diagnosis procedures that would normally be done.

However, one missing thing that you could do to prevent or stop malpractice suits is to remain in good communication with your patient at all times.

A patients tells you that you hurt them or that they feel worse with your care should be met with a response to demonstrate you care.
Having them come in for a free treatment, calling them to see how they’re doing is not an indication you are guilty but. An indication you care about them. People sue a doctor they think does not care.

I had miraculous things happen by having clients demonstrate they can treat patients who were threatening. Returning money, apologizing, offering to help in anyway possible are things you can do that make a major difference.

The very patient who you feel is antagonistic and that you feel is just a rip-off is usually the one who will sue if provoked.

It is better to get rid of the patient who upsets easily then to attack them. It is better to “eat crow” than to create upsets that can turn into lawsuits.

Patients who like you and feel you truly care about them are much less likely to sue than the one who feels you don’t care or deserve to be sued.

Care about your patients, and they will care about you. But always stay in contact with your malpractice carrier should any threat or problem arise.

Yours in Health,

Dr. David Singer

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Biggest Problem Facing Chiropractic Today!

Biggest Problem Facing Chiropractic Today

There are two big problems facing chiropractors. Those are obtaining more new patients, and removing their financial barriers to care. We will offer solutions to both problems in this article.

New patient marketing has to do with you getting people to talk to about what you do and how you can help them. If you don’t ever speak to people about what you do and how you can help, then no one will know to come to you.

Referrals are nothing more than patients telling others about you and what you do. Marketing is you doing the same thing except for yourself. The more people you meet and tell how you can help them, the more new patients you get.

You can meet people by doing lectures, health screenings, in office workshops or by offering free consultations to the families or friends of your patients. Talk to 10 new people a week and describe how you can help them and your practice goes up.

Once you get new patients you need to handle their ability to pay for your care. There are two ways to make your care affordable. You can either lower your fees or put people on payment plans they can afford. Most doctors are reluctant to let patients pay a fee they can afford on a payment plan for fear they would drop out of care and never pay their balance. However, by using outside financial institutions you can give your patients the care they need and still get paid.

Care Credit found at www.carecredit.com is a third part patient financing solution. CareCredit pays the practice up front less a small merchant discount fee.

Then there is Healthcare Payment Solutions. They will pick up and provide financing for all patients denied by Care Credit and charge 6% to the patient. Contact them at www.healthcarepaymentsolutions.com and again mention the “chiro legal action fund” and they will donate $100 to our legal fund when you register.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

David Singer Enterprises

I have recently made available the 5 Rules to Obtaining New Patients. Pick up your free copy at http://DavidSingerEnterprises.com/5rules.html

Friday, January 9, 2009

Olando Seminar

Why!

That is the question that all chiropractors must ask of themselves BEFORE ever seeing a patient.

"Why do I do this?"

In that question you will find the answer to all your problems...if you answer it HONESTLY!

All the problems that our profession faces right now are because of what we (chiropractors) did or did not do.

Since we decided to play the game of insurance reimbursement...we have been labeled as "back doctors" at best! Yet, we know we can handle a myriad of illnesses with the body.

In order to start seeing new patients in abundance, you must, must, must be able to speak with them in terms they understand-plain and simple.

I will be holding a special teleconference covering the aspects to obtaining new patients and nine specific referral techniques for a limited number of chirpractors.

Simply visit www.davidsingerenterprises.com/teleconference.php or call 1-800-326-1797 for faster service.

Because of the personal attention I give to each attendee, I limit these teleconferences to 9 doctors.

If you call and register using code BLOG I will personally see to it that you receive a special gift from me... a CD entitled 18 New Patients a Week---this was a talk I gave to some of the most influential chiropractors in the nation.

Call 1-800-326-1797 and ask for Betty, she will give you all the details. This is done on a first come, fisrt served basis-restrictions apply-call for details.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

David Singer Enterprises

David Singer and David Singer Enterprises

While a student, Dr. Singer was in a serious automobile accident. It was through Chiropractic care that his injuries were handled, allowing him to lead a normal life. This experience changed his life and led him to decide to become a chiropractor.
 
Dr. Singer received his undergraduate degree from Rutger’s University, his M.S. degree in nutrition from the University of Bridgeport, and his doctorate from the New York College of Chiropractic. Graduating with honors as the salutatorian of his class, he was indoctrinated into Phi Chi Omega, the international Chiropractic Honor Society.
In his first year of practice, Dr. Singer was seeing over 100 patients per day. Within eight years of practice, he was dubbed “Master of New Patients” by his peers, and was averaging over 150 new patients per month, despite the advertising limitations in his state.
By his third year of practice, Dr. Singer became President of the New Jersey Chiropractic Research Foundation, and a teacher for Parker Seminars. The following year (1976) he was voted “Chiropractor of the Year” by the 2000 members of the Parker Chiropractic Research Foundation, the youngest to ever receive this highly respected award.
In the same year, the Jaycees voted him “Outstanding Man of America.” In 1978 he also received the “Distinguished Service Award” from the New Jersey Chiropractic Society.
In 1999, Dr. Singer was awarded the prestigious Person of the Year Award, recognizing him as the most influential individual to make an economic impact on the Chiropractic profession.
In 2002, he received the Parker Centurion Award for his dedication to the chiropractic profession and the attendance record of 100 Parker seminars.
His transition from private practice to practice management came about due to the fact the he was constantly being asked to show his colleagues how to reach his level of success. In 1981, Dr. Singer founded his consulting company and since that time, his company has won the prestigious INC Magazine’s Top 100 fastest growing companies award.
David Singer Enterprises is a company which offers an honest and ethical approach to building a practice through practice expansion seminars, one-on-one consulting and a complete product line.
Dr. Singer’s hands-on seminars are about achieving one’s goals in a fun, non-stressful manner and include 107 techniques for accomplishing this.
Dr. Singer’s unique ideas, enthusiastic feeling, humor and ability to simplify the most complex subjects have made him one of the most sought after speakers in North America. One of his major goals is to see that chiropractic has the greatest impact possible in society.
www.davidsingerenterprises.com

Welcome to David Singer Enterprises
Would you like to have a thriving, stress-free office where quality patients eagerly await your care each day? 

Discover the secrets of the Singer Systems: Revolutionary, proven techniques, designed to help you improve all aspects of your business. Through our FREE practice analysis we can help pinpoint the key trouble areas of your business and recommend a swift course of action. Your goals can be achieved!
When you become a client, my staff will make it their mission to ensure that you achieve the goals you have set for yourself, and they’ll provide the road map to enable you to get there. In addition, we want you to have fun at the same time! 

As a client you will have access to our weekend seminars, weekly teleconferences led by my top clients and regular follow-up phone calls with a personal coach. 

We look forward to helping you on your journey. Let’s make this year the best year ever for you and your family!