Chiropractical

An American Express study says 56% of people tell others about a poor customer service experience, and they tell 33% more people about a negative experience than they do a positive one. What does that mean for you? Having an employee with a bad attitude in the front office can really affect the patient’s experience, and that can have a negative impact your bottom line.

Expert Kim Klapp has been training and coaching practice staff for nearly thirty years. She’s seen and heard it all, and she’s giving us the dirt. In this episode of Chiropractical, she and Mike Whitmer talk about ways chiropractic assistants can make a negative impression on patients even before they come in the door, and how doctors can coach and train their staff to do better for everyone’s benefit.

In our Ask NCMIC segment, Magda Lippold helps us understand when we might choose a lease vs. a purchase. 

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In 2022, there were 1 billion telehealth visits in the US. That's astounding. In fact, one in five healthcare sessions happened via technology. Clearly, this is a big part of the future of healthcare. Technology has changed the way we watch TV, get our news, buy groceries, get to the airport. It even helps us drive our cars. So how can we use all this technology to improve and strengthen your relationships with your patients?

In this episode of Chiropractical, we talk with Dr. Guy Riekeman about how and why incorporating technology into your practice can strengthen your connection with your patients, save you time and add revenue. 

In our Ask NCMIC segment, we look at the dangerous of email phishing. As our expert says, "Hackers only have to trick one person one time. But to protect ourselves, we have to be right every time."

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Opioids are the biggest crisis facing healthcare today, and chiropractors have an important role to play. On this episode of Chiropractical, we're going to take a fresh look and have some new thinking on the topic from Dr. Tim Bertelsman. 

Many young, healthy doctors feel life insurance is not something they need right now. We look at why you may want to reconsider. 

Additional Material

In this episode we refer to the following resources:

• Transcript (PDF)
• ChiroUp Opioid Toolkit

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If the unthinkable happens in your practice or workplace, you need to be prepared to act quickly. NCMIC’s Chiropractical podcast talks to Crisis Management expert Lieutenant Mark Rehberg about how to handle dangerous situations in your practice and what you can do to protect ourselves, your staff and your patients if someone with a gun or knife enters your office and threatens violence. We discuss:

• What goes into a safety plan
• Run, Hide, Fight 
• Available trainings & resources
• Situation types: mental health crisis, domestic violence, external threat

Get the show notes and podcast transcript here. 

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Hiring post-COVID is a whole different animal. We talk to Dr. Mark Sanna about how to find & keep great chiropractic employees in this new world. And in our Ask NCMIC segment, Mike Whitmer answers a question about standardized informed consent forms.

Links to additional resources can be found below the Transcript.

TRANSCRIPT:

Mike Whitmer:

Hello. Thank you for joining us for NC M I C'S Chiropractic, the podcast that helps doctors do more. I'm Mike Whitmer, NC M I C's, Vice President of Corporate Relations. Do you need to fill an office role? Good luck. Hiring in 2022 isn't the same as it was in 2019. Candidates are hard to find and when you do find someone you want to meet with, the tables are turned. They're going to interview you. Dr. Mark Santa has helped many, many chiropractors with issues around managing their practices of which hiring is a big part.

(00:32) Dr. Santa is CEO of Breakthrough Coaching, an International Healthcare Practice Management consulting firm. Dr. Sanna teaches an outcome based, functionally oriented system of procedures focused on preparing healthcare providers for the prevention and wellness services in high demand in today's healthcare environment. He is a fellow of the International College of Chiropractors, a Foundation for Chiropractic Progress board member, the finance committee chairman for the Chiropractic Summit, and the Future of Chiropractic Strategic Plan Communications committee co-chair. Dr. Sanna, thank you for joining us on Chiropractical.

Dr. Mark Sanna:                                    

Thank you for having me.

Mike Whitmer:

Dr. Sanna, we see the trends. People are quitting their jobs at record levels to seek greener pastures. Why is this happening?

Dr. Mark Sanna:

Mike, I think that the period that we've all gone through just recently with its challenges and the pandemic, really enabled many of us to take a harder look at not only what we do but why we do it. And so we have a period now that folks are referring to as the great resignation. I think maybe it was the great realization that the reason, the why we do what we do, is as important as how we're compensated for what we do.

Mike Whitmer:

Absolutely. I think that a lot of us had time on our hands and a lot of thinking and what kind of fulfillment. And like you say, more than a paycheck. Let's talk about some of the specifics about what's changed and how chiropractors can adapt. Let's start with finding good candidates for positions that you may have open. How has that changed?

Dr. Mark Sanna:

I think to go back to our original premise of why we do what we do, when I first came up in chiropractic practice, the rule was, you hired someone because they made your life easier, and that was the main reason for having an employee. Now we hire someone to compliment our skill sets, to fill in the gaps that we don't have. There's a great book called Traction, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS, by a guy named Geno Wickman. And Geno likes to say it this way, and I think this fits exactly for chiropractors, is that your job in running your business is to be the visionary. You set the vision, you set where we're going, and you need something they call an integrator, somebody to get stuff done.

And so filling in the gaps in your own personal organizational chart in a way that helps your organization move forward, grow, and also benefit not only you as the owner, but the employees as well, I think is really key. And so looking at hiring now is a lot different than just a job description or skill set. If you're hiring for skill set, you're going to be really limiting yourself in terms of the type of employee that you can really have to support you. Before you even think about hiring, take a good look at your core values as an organization, as a practice. What are we here to accomplish? And make sure that we hire folks that are in alignment with that value set.

Mike Whitmer:

So in this new environment, everything has changed, including the interview process. What's changed there? How do we approach interviews in this new environment?

Dr. Mark Sanna:

The internet has totally dramatically changed what the interview process used to be. You'd put an ad in the classifieds and folks would come in, they'd send resumes, et cetera. Now you put something out in Indeed or ZipRecruiter, and you get, no kidding, two, 300 responses. And out of those two, 300 responses, the folks who actually agree to maybe a group Zoom interview might be a third. So we're now down to a hundred or so. The hundred folks who say that they're going to come to that Zoom interview, maybe a half show up from that, maybe. Again, a half, we're down about 25 now, are maybe qualified for the job.

And when you set the in-person interview, if you're lucky, four show up, and the rest just ghost you, they're totally gone. And so you're there, "Is there something wrong with me?" And there's not. It's just the way that the interview process works now, and you're going to have to toughen up to that. That's very disheartening. You're thinking, "Is the posting not correct? What's wrong with what I'm doing?" And the bottom line is people are looking for a job that they can connect with. Making sure that posting really describes not just the hours of the job, full-time job description, et cetera, but why you're there and what they're going to gain and grow from. Being in that position, I think is really key.

Mike Whitmer:

The conversation during an interview has changed. It used to be the employer, the hiring doctor, would go in and ask all the questions, but that's changed too.

Dr. Mark Sanna:

Well, sure. So they've already Googled you, they've checked your LinkedIn profile, they know what your website looks like. When the candidate comes in, and in particular, millennial Gen Z candidates, they're going to be asking you a lot of questions. And that kind of puts some folks who haven't been used to this new process a little bit off. And the idea is they're looking for a match just as much as you are. Gen Z and millennials really want a position that has some social consciousness to it, something that is giving back, that has a higher purpose.

So if you're going to fill a clerical position, you have to connect the dots for the candidate between, how they are going to do their job, whether it's managing patient records or patient files or et cetera, and how in fact, that connects to the bigger place of making a difference in people's lives. And that's where, as chiropractors, we really shine, because we have that tremendous mission as our practices, to make a difference in people's lives. And so being able to verbalize that, make that part of the interview process, make that shine, I think is really important for folks who are going through that process right now.

Mike Whitmer:

Yeah, I think that chiropractors do have kind of a leg up in that they do have this terrific social purpose and place in healthcare. Communicating that is a challenge, I would imagine.

Dr. Mark Sanna:

Very true.

Mike Whitmer:

So once we find a good employee, how do we keep them? What do team members need to stay at their job?

Dr. Mark Sanna:

First of all, some flexibility. If in the past you've been very rigid, as many of us were. From two years ago till today, the whole landscape has changed. We are still in the tail end of this pandemic, and you're going to find maybe your paid time off policy, in which you gave folks a week or maybe two weeks after employment, PTL, the folks are burning through that really quickly. If you think you have to stick to that rigidly and not be flexible in terms of time off, I think that's really key and important to note.

I think what's also really important is to know that a lot of your workforce are parents now, and being rigid in terms of only a full-time position, versus maybe thinking about, could this be two part-time employees who are sharing the duty of that role? And maybe even a step beyond that, thinking about what is actually totally necessary to be onsite in the practice, versus what could possibly be done offsite from home in terms of being able to have childcare and the balance? It's really interesting that 50% now of our chiropractic college students are female. This I think not only holds for the employee, but for the employer as well. Thinking about quality of life balance is super, super important.

Mike Whitmer:

What about benefits as the job market becomes more competitive? Do employers have pressure on benefits offered to employees?

Dr. Mark Sanna:

As chiropractors, we truly do. First of all, when we talk about the starting salary, a couple of years ago, starting salary in a chiropractic practice for a typical chiropractic assistant position might be 11, 12, $13. If you're going to lead with 11, 12, $13, you're going to hear crickets chirping on your Indeed posting. Folks are having to adjust the starting salary up three, four, $5 in some regions, simply to be competitive for that entry level position.

I think the other challenge for us as small business folks is healthcare benefits. Being able to do something toward healthcare. Let's say you're a small chiropractic practice with a doc and a couple of CAs, it's a challenge to be able to pay for a full insurance premium for an employee that could cost seven, eight, nine, a thousand dollars a month. Having

Your job as a DC goes way further than spinal health – but chiropractors aren’t trained to treat mental health. So, what do you do when you have concerns about your chiropractic patient’s state of mind? Dr. Kristina Petroco-Napoli talks about red flags, how to ask the right questions, and when to refer out.  

Dr. Petrocco-Napuli is the President of the ACA Council on Women's Health. Recently, in recognition of her service to the profession, she was elected a Fellow in the International College of Chiropractors.

For many years, Dr. Petrocco-Napuli has focused on the integration of practitioners in the patient-centered model of care and evaluating methods of effectively working on a team of healthcare professionals. This interest began many years ago while on an internship at the Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital Chiropractic Clinic and has been reinforced by her involvement on multiple grant projects regarding the training of healthcare providers in inter-collaborative care.

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Summary: We may not have pipers piping or lords a-leaping, but we do have 12 months of lessons learned from the experts on our Chiropractical podcast.

Are you all caught up on Chiropractical this year? If not, join us for the year-in-review where our hosts and special guest Mike Whitmer discuss 2021’s most memorable stories and the lessons we learned from them. And even if you are caught up, you’ll want to tune in for the holly jolly recap. We take a look back at Season 2 and share some of our favorite moments and episodes. We cover topics including professional boundaries, case studies, social media, sports chiropractors and other great stuff relevant to your chiropractic practice.

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Innovation in chiropractic communication can spark trouble, and chiropractors need to recognize the digital dangers that can lead to disaster. On this episode of Chiropractical, Attorney Jennifer Herlihy of NCMIC’s defense counsel shares horror stories from digital that played out in real life. Listen to learn what can happen and how to avoid it to maintain a safe and comfortable practice for you and your patients.

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This month, we'll look at some cases that had our claims team spooked for a variety of reasons — from a patient who went to a shocking extreme in an attempt to win her case to a DC with a stunningly inappropriate staffing solution.

Settle in as our guests Mike Whitmer and David Siebert tell three scary claims tales and discuss what can be learned from each. 

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The bad news: Disc herniation claims are very common. The good news: They’re also highly defensible – if you follow some basic steps. In this episode, we'll explore what you can do to mitigate risk on a daily basis. We bring in Dr. James Demetrious and Mike Whitmer to dive into the details of what went wrong – and where it could have gone right.

Links to articles referenced in the episode are available at NCMIC.com/Chiropractical

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