July 6, 2025 • 20 mins
Welcome to the KC CHIROpulse Podcast.
This week’s topic: What Does Your Staff Know?
The KC CHIROpulse Podcast…the podcast that delivers real-world chiropractic business strategies in real time.
This week, the show is hosted by Kats Consultants’ coaches Dr Michael Perusich and Marisa Mateja, seasoned experts in Chiropractic business management. This podcast provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies to help you create a flourishing and sustainable Chiropractic business.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Whether or not you know what your staff knows
- How understanding issues like compliance can keep you out of trouble
- How easy it is to be a highly developed and impactful team
- Why team development is directly related to your success
- …and so much more…
In each episode of KC CHIROpulse, we delve into crucial aspects of building a successful Chiropractic practice, covering topics such as establishing a strong foundation, adopting a patient-centric approach, mastering marketing techniques, achieving financial fitness, fostering effective team building and leadership, integrating technology and innovation, and navigating common challenges in the field.
Whether you're a seasoned chiropractor or just starting your practice, the KC CHIROpulse Podcast offers a wealth of knowledge and personalized practical advice to help you navigate the intricate world of Chiropractic business. Join us on this journey as we explore proven strategies, share success stories, and connect with industry experts to empower you in your pursuit of building a thriving Chiropractic practice.
The KC CHIROpulse podcast is where strategy meets success. Subscribe now and unlock the secrets to taking your Chiropractic practice to the next level. Your success is our priority at Kats Chiropractic Business Advisors.
DISCLAIMER: The information presented in this broadcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to offer legal, investment, accounting, or medical advice, and represents the opinions of the speakers. Seek the consultation of a professional for advice in those areas. And remember…your results using this information may be different than described.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Michael Perusich (00:09):
Doctors.
What does your staff reallyknow?
Hi everybody.
Welcome to the KC ChiroPulsePodcast, brought to you by Kats
Consultants, the podcast thatdelivers real world chiropractic
business strategies in realtime.
I'm Dr.
Michael Perusich, your host, andI'm joined by my co-host Marisa
Mateja.
Marisa, what does our staffreally know?
(00:31):
What do they need to know?
And if they don't know, how isthat hurting us?
Marisa Mateja (00:36):
Obviously that hurts the practice big time if
they don't know what they needto know.
But it's funny they really don'tknow what they don't know
sometimes.
And I find that to, I didn'tknow that.
I know.
It's incredibly real though.
I see this all the time.
I start in on with a new clientand their staff and I start to
(00:57):
talk and it's.
I already know all that.
And then when you question themabout some of the rules or this
and that, then they're like, oh,I didn't know this.
Oh, I didn't know that.
I didn't know that.
So I think it's really importantthat our staff is trained.
I think it's really importantthat we uncover their knowledge
base and those kind of things sothat we can truly deliver the
(01:21):
kind of care and the experiencethat the patient really needs
from us.
Dr. Michael Perusich (01:26):
Yeah, I agree.
And I think this starts with thedoctor.
I think your doctors, you haveto know this stuff.
At least have a surfaceknowledge of some of it.
Yeah.
But some of the compliancethings and so forth, you really
need to know, but you need togive your staff the directive to
become knowledgeable and.
Marisa, we see this a lot.
We, at Kats Consultants, we putout tons of information to our
(01:48):
clients and what we findsometimes is the doctors aren't
driving that information backover to their staff or giving
them the tools or plugging theminto the tools to train.
And they're not making staff andteam development a priority.
Marisa Mateja (02:05):
And it's so important.
We just sent out a brand newclass the other day about
advantage plans and Medicare andthings, and.
What I see is a lot of the staffjust don't tune in on their own.
So it's gotta be driven by thedoctor.
They have to be the one thatsays, Hey, there's new material
out.
(02:25):
Sit down, let's watch this.
It's gonna be 20 minutes, yeah.
Let's take care of this and makesure that we're up to speed and
we know what the changes are andwe're
Dr. Michael Perus (02:33):
implementing.
Marisa Mateja (02:34):
Yeah.
And if the doctor can't sit downwith the staff.
Together.
They should at least befollowing up with the staff
after the fact and saying, okay,let's talk about the point, the
bullet points.
Let's, what did you learn?
What do you know?
And asking those questionsbecause I think that opens up a
conversation then within yourpractice that can be incredibly
valuable.
Dr. Michael Perusich (02:56):
Huge.
And and if we're talking aboutcompliance with insurance
programs, compliance with HIPAAcompliance with Medicare
compliance, with plan Cpolicies, Medicare Advantage
Compliance with no surprises,act, there's so many things that
we have to track and we need ourstaff to do that.
So that we as the doctors canbe, focused more on patient
care.
But as a team, if we're notdoing those things, what are the
(03:19):
consequences?
Marisa Mateja (03:20):
Can they explain to a patient the value of the
treatment plan?
Can they talk about what thedoctor's doing with them through
the adjustment?
Sure.
What's the importance of themstaying under the treatment plan
and finishing a care plan?
What is the value to thepatient?
There's so many things that itcomes back to, right?
Yep.
Just understanding if you're aninsurance practice, for
(03:43):
instance, just understandingwhat is covered and not covered.
I see so many practices wantingto skip the verification of
benefits.
Part of everything, and that'sthe beginning knowledge base of
everything.
If you're in insurance practice,yeah, you have to know what's
covered and what's not covered,right?
You have to know what's gonna becash and what's gonna be under
(04:06):
insurance, and you have to knowhow to talk about maintenance
care, and that goes for.
That goes for your employees aswell as you doctors.
It starts with you talking aboutthat as a goal for the patient,
but it transfers over to thatside of the business with the
staff talking to patients aboutwhat's going to be collected.
Dr. Michael Perusich (04:28):
You bring up a great point there.
I wanna talk a little bit aboutsome of those transitions and
being compliant with theinsurance plans and so forth.
But we need to, I cannot talk.
We need to take a quick break.
I'm so excited about this topic.
I guess I'm talking too fast.
So we're gonna take a quickbreak here.
Word from our sponsors.
We'll be right back.
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Dr. Michael Perusich (05:59):
Hi everybody.
Welcome back to the KC Pulspodcast.
We're talking with Marisa todayand we're talking about getting
your staff engaged in theirknowledge base of things in the
practice.
And we were talking about you,you brought this up, Marisa,
understanding what insurancecover, what they don't cover.
And so doctors do your insuranceplans cover maintenance.
(06:22):
Not usually.
Not usually, but there's a lotof caveats to that.
And how many visits of acutecare do you get before you
really should be pushing thosepatients over to maintenance or
discharging them from care?
Marisa Mateja (06:35):
Yeah,
Dr. Michael Perusich (06:36):
And if you're.
Doctors.
If you don't know that, thenyour staff probably doesn't.
Yeah.
And if your staff does know itand they're not sharing it with
you, and vice versa, if there'sa hole there in the cog, you've
gotta plug it.
You've gotta fill that inbecause that's incredibly
important.
Because if you are an outlier inyour insurance billing, what
(06:57):
happens in that?
What's the end result of that?
An audit?
And we're seeing a lot of auditsright now.
A lot of the insurance companieshave government fines that they
have to pay and lawsuits thatthey're having to pay off right
now.
And I got news for you.
Insurance companies don't paythose.
We do.
'cause they come back and theyget it from two places.
(07:18):
They recoup it from us, fromreimbursement, and they recoup
it from their members who arepaying their premiums by raising
premiums.
You gotta dot your i's and crossyour T's right now more than
ever.
And so understanding thatMedicare has an endpoint,
Medicare is not unlimited care.
So at some point you've eithergotta discharge the patient or
(07:41):
put'em on a GA and an A BN, orif it's an advantage plan,
there's a whole nother set ofrules.
Marisa Mateja (07:47):
And I just wanna clarify something right now.
Part B is the same nationwide.
I hear a lot in my area no.
It is the same nationwide.
So know what your rules areunder your part B, and also make
sure you're verifying benefitsunder that part C, your
advantage plan.
So it's so important.
(08:08):
So important.
Dr. Michael Perusich (08:09):
Yeah.
And the same distinction.
Under Part C, the Advantageplans.
It is not like Part B.
It's different.
It's completely different.
Some of those Cadillac plansunder the Advantage side do
cover some maintenance.
Do you know that?
Do you know how much they cover?
Some have some utilize the A BNform.
(08:30):
Some have their own form.
Some don't have a form at all.
Some you have to use differentmodifiers, and if you don't
understand this.
Then you're gonna set yourselfup to get in trouble.
Marisa Mateja (08:42):
So the, these are really the crux of what you
really need to make sure staffis understanding, right?
It starts with, if you're aninsurance practice, it starts
with verifying benefits.
It starts with understandingthose plans and understanding
insurance, being able to read anEOB, being able to communicate
that information to a patientbecause then we come back around
(09:03):
and it.
All of that then helps yourstaff be able to talk about what
you're doing and why, and yourtreatment plans and what that's
going to do for the patient.
So it's really important to knowthat they know what your
policies and your pricing modelslook like and those kind of
things so that they cancommunicate to the patient.
Dr. Michael Perusic (09:25):
Absolutely.
And there's a whole plethora ofother things.
That they need to know.
They need to understand thepractice's, mission and values.
Yeah.
They need to understand whatyour goals are with the
practice.
They need to have a, I think, areally good understanding of
chiropractic fundamentals andchiropractic philosophy so they
can communicate to patients whychiropractic care is so
(09:46):
important.
Marisa Mateja (09:48):
Absolutely.
It.
We used to sit down and talkevery single day almost, right?
So we did our huddles in themorning and we would sit down
and talk about who was on ourschedule and why they were
coming in.
And I encourage you docs tocommunicate with your staff and
give them the understanding ofwhy these patients are coming to
(10:08):
see you, what you are doing withthem.
And that all will in turn comeback.
Hugely to you because now yourstaff can reiterate what you've
told the patient without eventhinking about it.
It's just common knowledge intheir brain to be able to
regurgitate basically whatyou're telling the patients.
(10:29):
And so Exactly.
We talk about that mimicking ofthe doctor a lot, and I think
it's incredibly important.
Dr. Michael Perusich (10:36):
Yeah.
And to piggyback on that, dothey know how to, again, I'll
use your term piggyback on whatyou're telling the patient to
help gain case acceptance.
Yeah.
And engage the patients in theircare plan.
Your patients are leaving youfrom the report of findings and
where are they going?
They're going to the front deskand they're talking to your
staff.
And your staff can be helping toreengage or fully engage that
(10:59):
patient in your carerecommendations.
And if they're not.
When the communication is off,that's when patients spin off
and drop out of the practice.
Marisa Mateja (11:09):
Yeah.
And I've been asked this, how dowe get to that point?
Role playing is huge.
Practice these scenarios.
Have the doctor go behind a.
A treatment room door and havethe staff pretend they're
patients and move around andtalk about the flow of the
practice, talk about thecommunication that happens, talk
about what's gonna happen nextwith the patient, and how do we
(11:29):
talk to the patient about that.
All of these things are huge.
So role playing to me isincredibly important because we
uncover things that we didn'teven realize about the practice
sometimes.
So sometimes you.
Find an area that is beingtripped up, or maybe it takes
too long.
And as we all know, every secondcounts in our practice, right?
(11:53):
It matters that we have goodflow going on because each step
that patient takes can takeseconds off of your day.
So the faster you get'em to atreatment plan, the, or excuse
me, treatment room, and thefaster that you get'em to
therapy or the faster you get'emback to the front desk and out
your door.
The better experience that thepatient has, if they're not
(12:14):
waiting, they're, and it helpswith turnover in your practice.
What do I mean by that?
I don't mean you're losingpatients, but on a day-to-day
basis you can see more people.
It's like going to a restaurant.
Dr. Michael Perusich (12:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Marisa Mateja (12:26):
It's like going to a restaurant.
Like they wanna turn over tablesquickly.
The same thing happens in ourpractice.
We wanna turn over ouradjustment rooms to make sure
that we can maximize the amountof people we can see in a day.
This all happens with goodcommunication, good flow
procedures, practicing thosethings.
It really does help thepractice.
Dr. Michael Perusich (12:46):
And you mentioned, we talked about this
a lot in our practice and thewhole goal was to develop a high
performance team.
Yeah.
And, how do you become a reallygreat professional ball team?
Football, baseball, doesn'tmatter what sport, but how do
they become great?
They practice.
Practice, and it's thatrepetition.
It's that constantly innovatingand evolving and mastering those
(13:08):
skills.
And creating that culture ofconstant learning in the
practice.
And I hear docs say, oh, wedon't have time to do that.
We need to be in patient care.
Yeah.
I'm gonna call you out on thatbecause you're not in patient
care as much as you think youare.
And if you're a better managerof time and you can get your
staff involved this to in,involved in this to help.
(13:30):
If you guys as a team aremanaging time on a.
On a highly effective level.
There's all kinds of time to dothis stuff.
All kinds.
Yeah.
Marisa Mateja (13:40):
There's time for micro trainings, if you will.
You don't have long, extensivethings.
And a lot of our offices knowour trainings are all between
five and 15 minutes.
We keep them short and conciseso that you can jump in, watch
something.
You could watch one of those aday and.
Expand your knowledge base fivetimes, just in a week.
(14:00):
It's amazing what you can do.
So you know, that's important.
Do you have the other sec?
Part of that I would say is doyou have staff that are asking
questions and wanna learn andwant more responsibility?
And if you do these, this iswhere you do it.
Role playing and micro training,huge for our practice.
Dr. Michael Perusich (14:22):
It's huge.
So we need to take anotherbreak, but I wanna come back and
I want to wrap this up and talkabout what's the benefit, what's
the payoff of having a teamthat's in the know that
understands all these things andeverybody's aligned together.
So we're talking about what doesyour staff know and the
importance of making sure theyknow what they need to know to
(14:44):
help you run a great practice.
So we'll be right back.
Kats Consultants (14:51):
Kats Chiropractic consultants, your
partner in chiropractic success.
We are dedicated with one-on-oneguidance to bring you all your
practice management needs.
Let's supercharge your practice.
Give us a call today.
Dr. Michael Perusich (15:18):
Okay, Marisa, we're talking about what
does our staff know and, there'sso many benefits to this.
It just I don't know that wecould even mention them all
here, but, things like improvedpatient communication.
This is one of the barriers wesee in most practices is the
communication is not, it's notgood enough.
(15:40):
To keep patients in care forvery long.
And when we don't have alignedcommunication, and when I say
aligned, the doctor and thestaff are all saying the same
things to the patient andreinforcing the message.
Patients leave.
That's one of the big reasonswhy they drop outta care.
And now they, they may give youa different excuse I don't have
time, I don't have the money,whatever.
(16:02):
But the real reason is somewherealong the way the communication
was off.
Marisa Mateja (16:06):
Yeah, and let's just face it, you can't scale a
practice with staff who arewinging it, right?
So you have to have people thatare engaged that understand the
communication process.
And we see this a lot and.
Very commonly, we flip thescript by a couple words or you
change a sentence around and itmeans something different,
(16:28):
right?
Means something different.
So a lot of times it is just theway that we are saying things,
the way we're presenting it, andif we flip the script just a
little bit.
So often you get such betterresults, and so instead of a
question, it's a statement.
Little bitty things can changethe outcomes of your patients
(16:49):
staying with you and adhering totreatment plans.
We can do that very quickly alot of times.
So it's again, what you know andwhat you don't know, right?
And so it's pulling that greatknowledge base in and really
implementing that into yourpractice so that you can get
these growth strategies in placeso that you can,
Dr. Michael Perusich (17:11):
yeah, a highly trained team and doctors
that includes you in the team.
You should be driving growth,not draining energy.
That's far too often what we seeis just this, these practices
who have a constant flow of newstaff because they can't retain
staff and staff's not happy andthe doctor's not happy and
(17:33):
nobody's engaged and nobody'scommunicating.
And a lot of it just comes downto are you developing as a team
and are you making sure thatyour staff knows what they need
to know?
I know that sounds like Dr.
Seuss, but it's important.
Marisa Mateja (17:47):
Start with just asking your staff to explain
your philosophy.
Dr. Michael Perusich (17:53):
Yeah.
Marisa Mateja (17:53):
Start with them explaining your technique.
Start with them explaining, yourtreatment plans one little thing
at a time, and all of a suddenyou're really building on that
knowledge base.
Dr. Michael Perusich (18:06):
You brought up one that I always
thought was funny.
So many staff members have noidea what techniques their
doctors use.
Marisa Mateja (18:12):
Sure.
And I realize that's notsomething that.
Our patients ask a lot, right?
Some do.
Some do.
Some do.
But it's, having thatinformation helps them explain
why you're doing things.
It's the why that's important inall of this.
Sure.
Is being able to talk aboutthose things.
Dr. Michael Perusich (18:32):
I'll give you a great example where it's
not a specific, but how about apatient who calls up and says.
I really want to come see achiropractor.
I'm trying to find one that Idon't like manual adjustments,
so I'm trying to find somethingdifferent.
And what if your staff says, oh,I don't even know what
techniques our doctor does, or,I don't even know what that
means.
Instead of, oh, our doctorutilizes the activator or
(18:55):
adjustment in instruments.
You'll love it.
It's a great alternative to amanual adjustment.
Let's get you scheduled.
Isn't that a much betterapproach?
But if your team doesn't knowthe answer to that.
Your practice is gonna come offlooking oh, that's not the place
to go.
They don't even know whatthey're doing.
Marisa Mateja (19:12):
And I will, I would encourage all of you docs
that are listening, don't assumeI.
Your staff knows.
Again, don't ask them to explainthese things to you because
you'll uncover where the holesare in their communication
strategies or what they know andhow they can communicate.
Dr. Michael Perusic (19:29):
Absolutely.
Marisa, this is a greatconversation.
We could go on with this forhours but go to Kats
consultants.com, see all thegreat things that we're doing
for our clients and for theprofession.
If you want to see if we're agood fit for you, jump on our
schedule.
You can do that on our website.
When you go to Katsconsultants.com, it's in the top
right corner.
Let's chat.
(19:49):
We do that for free.
We love talking to you guys outthere.
So let's talk about yourpractice.
And I wanna thank Chiro HealthUSA, for being one of our
sponsors.
They're an amazing team and anamazing group of people, so go
check them out too.
And Marisa, anything to add?
Marisa Mateja (20:04):
No.
We're just glad that you tunedin today and figure out what you
know and what you don't.
Dr. Michael Perusic (20:09):
Absolutely.
What do you know?
All right, everybody.
Thanks for tuning into the KCpolt Podcast, where strategy
meets success.
We'll see you next time.
Marisa Mateja (20:19):
See ya.
Doctors.
What does your staff reallyknow?
Hi everybody.
Welcome to the KC ChiroPulsePodcast, brought to you by Kats
Consultants, the podcast thatdelivers real world chiropractic
business strategies in realtime.
I'm Dr.
Michael Perusich, your host, andI'm joined by my co-host Marisa
Mateja.
Marisa, what does our staffreally know?
(00:31):
What do they need to know?
And if they don't know, how isthat hurting us?
Marisa Mateja (00:36):
Obviously that hurts the practice big time if
they don't know what they needto know.
But it's funny they really don'tknow what they don't know
sometimes.
And I find that to, I didn'tknow that.
I know.
It's incredibly real though.
I see this all the time.
I start in on with a new clientand their staff and I start to
(00:57):
talk and it's.
I already know all that.
And then when you question themabout some of the rules or this
and that, then they're like, oh,I didn't know this.
Oh, I didn't know that.
I didn't know that.
So I think it's really importantthat our staff is trained.
I think it's really importantthat we uncover their knowledge
base and those kind of things sothat we can truly deliver the
(01:21):
kind of care and the experiencethat the patient really needs
from us.
Dr. Michael Perusich (01:26):
Yeah, I agree.
And I think this starts with thedoctor.
I think your doctors, you haveto know this stuff.
At least have a surfaceknowledge of some of it.
Yeah.
But some of the compliancethings and so forth, you really
need to know, but you need togive your staff the directive to
become knowledgeable and.
Marisa, we see this a lot.
We, at Kats Consultants, we putout tons of information to our
(01:48):
clients and what we findsometimes is the doctors aren't
driving that information backover to their staff or giving
them the tools or plugging theminto the tools to train.
And they're not making staff andteam development a priority.
Marisa Mateja (02:05):
And it's so important.
We just sent out a brand newclass the other day about
advantage plans and Medicare andthings, and.
What I see is a lot of the staffjust don't tune in on their own.
So it's gotta be driven by thedoctor.
They have to be the one thatsays, Hey, there's new material
out.
(02:25):
Sit down, let's watch this.
It's gonna be 20 minutes, yeah.
Let's take care of this and makesure that we're up to speed and
we know what the changes are andwe're
Dr. Michael Perus (02:33):
implementing.
Marisa Mateja (02:34):
Yeah.
And if the doctor can't sit downwith the staff.
Together.
They should at least befollowing up with the staff
after the fact and saying, okay,let's talk about the point, the
bullet points.
Let's, what did you learn?
What do you know?
And asking those questionsbecause I think that opens up a
conversation then within yourpractice that can be incredibly
valuable.
Dr. Michael Perusich (02:56):
Huge.
And and if we're talking aboutcompliance with insurance
programs, compliance with HIPAAcompliance with Medicare
compliance, with plan Cpolicies, Medicare Advantage
Compliance with no surprises,act, there's so many things that
we have to track and we need ourstaff to do that.
So that we as the doctors canbe, focused more on patient
care.
But as a team, if we're notdoing those things, what are the
(03:19):
consequences?
Marisa Mateja (03:20):
Can they explain to a patient the value of the
treatment plan?
Can they talk about what thedoctor's doing with them through
the adjustment?
Sure.
What's the importance of themstaying under the treatment plan
and finishing a care plan?
What is the value to thepatient?
There's so many things that itcomes back to, right?
Yep.
Just understanding if you're aninsurance practice, for
(03:43):
instance, just understandingwhat is covered and not covered.
I see so many practices wantingto skip the verification of
benefits.
Part of everything, and that'sthe beginning knowledge base of
everything.
If you're in insurance practice,yeah, you have to know what's
covered and what's not covered,right?
You have to know what's gonna becash and what's gonna be under
(04:06):
insurance, and you have to knowhow to talk about maintenance
care, and that goes for.
That goes for your employees aswell as you doctors.
It starts with you talking aboutthat as a goal for the patient,
but it transfers over to thatside of the business with the
staff talking to patients aboutwhat's going to be collected.
Dr. Michael Perusich (04:28):
You bring up a great point there.
I wanna talk a little bit aboutsome of those transitions and
being compliant with theinsurance plans and so forth.
But we need to, I cannot talk.
We need to take a quick break.
I'm so excited about this topic.
I guess I'm talking too fast.
So we're gonna take a quickbreak here.
Word from our sponsors.
We'll be right back.
ChiroHealth USA (04:49):
In today's economy, every dollar counts.
Families are facing toughchoices, having to reconsider
what was once essential to them,but close to healthcare, no one
should have to compromise ontheir wellbeing because of
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Dr. Michael Perusich (05:59):
Hi everybody.
Welcome back to the KC Pulspodcast.
We're talking with Marisa todayand we're talking about getting
your staff engaged in theirknowledge base of things in the
practice.
And we were talking about you,you brought this up, Marisa,
understanding what insurancecover, what they don't cover.
And so doctors do your insuranceplans cover maintenance.
(06:22):
Not usually.
Not usually, but there's a lotof caveats to that.
And how many visits of acutecare do you get before you
really should be pushing thosepatients over to maintenance or
discharging them from care?
Marisa Mateja (06:35):
Yeah,
Dr. Michael Perusich (06:36):
And if you're.
Doctors.
If you don't know that, thenyour staff probably doesn't.
Yeah.
And if your staff does know itand they're not sharing it with
you, and vice versa, if there'sa hole there in the cog, you've
gotta plug it.
You've gotta fill that inbecause that's incredibly
important.
Because if you are an outlier inyour insurance billing, what
(06:57):
happens in that?
What's the end result of that?
An audit?
And we're seeing a lot of auditsright now.
A lot of the insurance companieshave government fines that they
have to pay and lawsuits thatthey're having to pay off right
now.
And I got news for you.
Insurance companies don't paythose.
We do.
'cause they come back and theyget it from two places.
(07:18):
They recoup it from us, fromreimbursement, and they recoup
it from their members who arepaying their premiums by raising
premiums.
You gotta dot your i's and crossyour T's right now more than
ever.
And so understanding thatMedicare has an endpoint,
Medicare is not unlimited care.
So at some point you've eithergotta discharge the patient or
(07:41):
put'em on a GA and an A BN, orif it's an advantage plan,
there's a whole nother set ofrules.
Marisa Mateja (07:47):
And I just wanna clarify something right now.
Part B is the same nationwide.
I hear a lot in my area no.
It is the same nationwide.
So know what your rules areunder your part B, and also make
sure you're verifying benefitsunder that part C, your
advantage plan.
So it's so important.
(08:08):
So important.
Dr. Michael Perusich (08:09):
Yeah.
And the same distinction.
Under Part C, the Advantageplans.
It is not like Part B.
It's different.
It's completely different.
Some of those Cadillac plansunder the Advantage side do
cover some maintenance.
Do you know that?
Do you know how much they cover?
Some have some utilize the A BNform.
(08:30):
Some have their own form.
Some don't have a form at all.
Some you have to use differentmodifiers, and if you don't
understand this.
Then you're gonna set yourselfup to get in trouble.
Marisa Mateja (08:42):
So the, these are really the crux of what you
really need to make sure staffis understanding, right?
It starts with, if you're aninsurance practice, it starts
with verifying benefits.
It starts with understandingthose plans and understanding
insurance, being able to read anEOB, being able to communicate
that information to a patientbecause then we come back around
(09:03):
and it.
All of that then helps yourstaff be able to talk about what
you're doing and why, and yourtreatment plans and what that's
going to do for the patient.
So it's really important to knowthat they know what your
policies and your pricing modelslook like and those kind of
things so that they cancommunicate to the patient.
Dr. Michael Perusic (09:25):
Absolutely.
And there's a whole plethora ofother things.
That they need to know.
They need to understand thepractice's, mission and values.
Yeah.
They need to understand whatyour goals are with the
practice.
They need to have a, I think, areally good understanding of
chiropractic fundamentals andchiropractic philosophy so they
can communicate to patients whychiropractic care is so
(09:46):
important.
Marisa Mateja (09:48):
Absolutely.
It.
We used to sit down and talkevery single day almost, right?
So we did our huddles in themorning and we would sit down
and talk about who was on ourschedule and why they were
coming in.
And I encourage you docs tocommunicate with your staff and
give them the understanding ofwhy these patients are coming to
(10:08):
see you, what you are doing withthem.
And that all will in turn comeback.
Hugely to you because now yourstaff can reiterate what you've
told the patient without eventhinking about it.
It's just common knowledge intheir brain to be able to
regurgitate basically whatyou're telling the patients.
(10:29):
And so Exactly.
We talk about that mimicking ofthe doctor a lot, and I think
it's incredibly important.
Dr. Michael Perusich (10:36):
Yeah.
And to piggyback on that, dothey know how to, again, I'll
use your term piggyback on whatyou're telling the patient to
help gain case acceptance.
Yeah.
And engage the patients in theircare plan.
Your patients are leaving youfrom the report of findings and
where are they going?
They're going to the front deskand they're talking to your
staff.
And your staff can be helping toreengage or fully engage that
(10:59):
patient in your carerecommendations.
And if they're not.
When the communication is off,that's when patients spin off
and drop out of the practice.
Marisa Mateja (11:09):
Yeah.
And I've been asked this, how dowe get to that point?
Role playing is huge.
Practice these scenarios.
Have the doctor go behind a.
A treatment room door and havethe staff pretend they're
patients and move around andtalk about the flow of the
practice, talk about thecommunication that happens, talk
about what's gonna happen nextwith the patient, and how do we
(11:29):
talk to the patient about that.
All of these things are huge.
So role playing to me isincredibly important because we
uncover things that we didn'teven realize about the practice
sometimes.
So sometimes you.
Find an area that is beingtripped up, or maybe it takes
too long.
And as we all know, every secondcounts in our practice, right?
(11:53):
It matters that we have goodflow going on because each step
that patient takes can takeseconds off of your day.
So the faster you get'em to atreatment plan, the, or excuse
me, treatment room, and thefaster that you get'em to
therapy or the faster you get'emback to the front desk and out
your door.
The better experience that thepatient has, if they're not
(12:14):
waiting, they're, and it helpswith turnover in your practice.
What do I mean by that?
I don't mean you're losingpatients, but on a day-to-day
basis you can see more people.
It's like going to a restaurant.
Dr. Michael Perusich (12:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Marisa Mateja (12:26):
It's like going to a restaurant.
Like they wanna turn over tablesquickly.
The same thing happens in ourpractice.
We wanna turn over ouradjustment rooms to make sure
that we can maximize the amountof people we can see in a day.
This all happens with goodcommunication, good flow
procedures, practicing thosethings.
It really does help thepractice.
Dr. Michael Perusich (12:46):
And you mentioned, we talked about this
a lot in our practice and thewhole goal was to develop a high
performance team.
Yeah.
And, how do you become a reallygreat professional ball team?
Football, baseball, doesn'tmatter what sport, but how do
they become great?
They practice.
Practice, and it's thatrepetition.
It's that constantly innovatingand evolving and mastering those
(13:08):
skills.
And creating that culture ofconstant learning in the
practice.
And I hear docs say, oh, wedon't have time to do that.
We need to be in patient care.
Yeah.
I'm gonna call you out on thatbecause you're not in patient
care as much as you think youare.
And if you're a better managerof time and you can get your
staff involved this to in,involved in this to help.
(13:30):
If you guys as a team aremanaging time on a.
On a highly effective level.
There's all kinds of time to dothis stuff.
All kinds.
Yeah.
Marisa Mateja (13:40):
There's time for micro trainings, if you will.
You don't have long, extensivethings.
And a lot of our offices knowour trainings are all between
five and 15 minutes.
We keep them short and conciseso that you can jump in, watch
something.
You could watch one of those aday and.
Expand your knowledge base fivetimes, just in a week.
(14:00):
It's amazing what you can do.
So you know, that's important.
Do you have the other sec?
Part of that I would say is doyou have staff that are asking
questions and wanna learn andwant more responsibility?
And if you do these, this iswhere you do it.
Role playing and micro training,huge for our practice.
Dr. Michael Perusich (14:22):
It's huge.
So we need to take anotherbreak, but I wanna come back and
I want to wrap this up and talkabout what's the benefit, what's
the payoff of having a teamthat's in the know that
understands all these things andeverybody's aligned together.
So we're talking about what doesyour staff know and the
importance of making sure theyknow what they need to know to
(14:44):
help you run a great practice.
So we'll be right back.
Kats Consultants (14:51):
Kats Chiropractic consultants, your
partner in chiropractic success.
We are dedicated with one-on-oneguidance to bring you all your
practice management needs.
Let's supercharge your practice.
Give us a call today.
Dr. Michael Perusich (15:18):
Okay, Marisa, we're talking about what
does our staff know and, there'sso many benefits to this.
It just I don't know that wecould even mention them all
here, but, things like improvedpatient communication.
This is one of the barriers wesee in most practices is the
communication is not, it's notgood enough.
(15:40):
To keep patients in care forvery long.
And when we don't have alignedcommunication, and when I say
aligned, the doctor and thestaff are all saying the same
things to the patient andreinforcing the message.
Patients leave.
That's one of the big reasonswhy they drop outta care.
And now they, they may give youa different excuse I don't have
time, I don't have the money,whatever.
(16:02):
But the real reason is somewherealong the way the communication
was off.
Marisa Mateja (16:06):
Yeah, and let's just face it, you can't scale a
practice with staff who arewinging it, right?
So you have to have people thatare engaged that understand the
communication process.
And we see this a lot and.
Very commonly, we flip thescript by a couple words or you
change a sentence around and itmeans something different,
(16:28):
right?
Means something different.
So a lot of times it is just theway that we are saying things,
the way we're presenting it, andif we flip the script just a
little bit.
So often you get such betterresults, and so instead of a
question, it's a statement.
Little bitty things can changethe outcomes of your patients
(16:49):
staying with you and adhering totreatment plans.
We can do that very quickly alot of times.
So it's again, what you know andwhat you don't know, right?
And so it's pulling that greatknowledge base in and really
implementing that into yourpractice so that you can get
these growth strategies in placeso that you can,
Dr. Michael Perusich (17:11):
yeah, a highly trained team and doctors
that includes you in the team.
You should be driving growth,not draining energy.
That's far too often what we seeis just this, these practices
who have a constant flow of newstaff because they can't retain
staff and staff's not happy andthe doctor's not happy and
(17:33):
nobody's engaged and nobody'scommunicating.
And a lot of it just comes downto are you developing as a team
and are you making sure thatyour staff knows what they need
to know?
I know that sounds like Dr.
Seuss, but it's important.
Marisa Mateja (17:47):
Start with just asking your staff to explain
your philosophy.
Dr. Michael Perusich (17:53):
Yeah.
Marisa Mateja (17:53):
Start with them explaining your technique.
Start with them explaining, yourtreatment plans one little thing
at a time, and all of a suddenyou're really building on that
knowledge base.
Dr. Michael Perusich (18:06):
You brought up one that I always
thought was funny.
So many staff members have noidea what techniques their
doctors use.
Marisa Mateja (18:12):
Sure.
And I realize that's notsomething that.
Our patients ask a lot, right?
Some do.
Some do.
Some do.
But it's, having thatinformation helps them explain
why you're doing things.
It's the why that's important inall of this.
Sure.
Is being able to talk aboutthose things.
Dr. Michael Perusich (18:32):
I'll give you a great example where it's
not a specific, but how about apatient who calls up and says.
I really want to come see achiropractor.
I'm trying to find one that Idon't like manual adjustments,
so I'm trying to find somethingdifferent.
And what if your staff says, oh,I don't even know what
techniques our doctor does, or,I don't even know what that
means.
Instead of, oh, our doctorutilizes the activator or
(18:55):
adjustment in instruments.
You'll love it.
It's a great alternative to amanual adjustment.
Let's get you scheduled.
Isn't that a much betterapproach?
But if your team doesn't knowthe answer to that.
Your practice is gonna come offlooking oh, that's not the place
to go.
They don't even know whatthey're doing.
Marisa Mateja (19:12):
And I will, I would encourage all of you docs
that are listening, don't assumeI.
Your staff knows.
Again, don't ask them to explainthese things to you because
you'll uncover where the holesare in their communication
strategies or what they know andhow they can communicate.
Dr. Michael Perusic (19:29):
Absolutely.
Marisa, this is a greatconversation.
We could go on with this forhours but go to Kats
consultants.com, see all thegreat things that we're doing
for our clients and for theprofession.
If you want to see if we're agood fit for you, jump on our
schedule.
You can do that on our website.
When you go to Katsconsultants.com, it's in the top
right corner.
Let's chat.
(19:49):
We do that for free.
We love talking to you guys outthere.
So let's talk about yourpractice.
And I wanna thank Chiro HealthUSA, for being one of our
sponsors.
They're an amazing team and anamazing group of people, so go
check them out too.
And Marisa, anything to add?
Marisa Mateja (20:04):
No.
We're just glad that you tunedin today and figure out what you
know and what you don't.
Dr. Michael Perusic (20:09):
Absolutely.
What do you know?
All right, everybody.
Thanks for tuning into the KCpolt Podcast, where strategy
meets success.
We'll see you next time.
Marisa Mateja (20:19):
See ya.
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