The U.S. government has got you covered. Don’t worry about a thing. Your future is in the hands of bureaucrats and legislators. You can sleep well tonight.
Just kidding. You can start hyperventilating any time you’re ready.
We’re talking about the American healthcare system – or, to be more precise, its future.
Setting aside clairvoyants, rollers of crystal balls and prophets clothed in sackcloth and ashes, the future of U.S. health care is, at best, uncertain.
Supporters of the American Health Care Act, paint a plush, rosy picture of a vibrant, robust, contented citizenry. Critics, however, are dashing for cover and point to the soon-coming apocalypse looming on the horizon. In fact, even as we speak, Chicken Little is preparing his feathers for a mad dash around the farm yard proclaiming the healthcare sky is about to fall.
The reality is somewhere in between.
While the ACA has stirred considerable controversy in the last several years, the new healthcare proposal and negotiations are causing a collective holding of the breath – which isn’t healthy physically or metaphorically.
Chiropractors, so much more so than their peers in the traditional medical community (physicians), are under fire. Reimbursements are shrinking, insurers are unsure if they want to continue paying for chiropractic treatment and the lofty goals of the chiropractic philosophy appear at times to be getting lost in the shuffle of a titanic bureaucracy held together by miles of red tape.
Statistics don’t cast chiropractors in a favorable light either. Nearly 100 percent of Americans will visit a physician or physician’s office sometime in their lives. Only 11 percent will see a chiropractor.
Even though chiropractic takes treatment to the core of human affliction by addressing the cause as opposed to the symptom, most Americans seek care to make symptoms go away, leaving the underlying problem in place. In short, chiropractic takes a holistic and proactive approach; traditional treatment leans to the pharmaceutical and reactive side.
The future of the American healthcare system is on the move; whether in a positive direction or not is yet to be determined.
Now that you’re awash in doom and gloom and contemplating a new career in accounting or automobile insurance sales, we offer the good news. You may breathe now. At least until you finish this article. Let’s now away from the dark side and into the light.
Where is the Answer?
The solution, in a nutshell, depends on you, the individual chiropractor. The philosophical goal of chiropractic must remain intact; it cannot be negotiated, compromised or diluted. Taking care of your patients and seeking the best ways of improving care must always be your top priorities. Once those ethics are compromised to make money or even to survive in a bruising future, all is lost. We as chiropractors cannot afford to sacrifice our professional mores at the altar of financial convenience.
So, you may be thinking, what’s the answer? Short of running for Congressional office and at the same time getting a whole lot of other successful chiropractors to do the same, your fate rests in the hands of politicians in a city to the south of Maryland and to the north of Virginia, Washington, D.C. There you’ll find your future: whatever they decide is best for you and the nation.
Unless.
That’s the key, unless. You have options available to fortify yourself and your practice against a shaky future and against legislators who probably don’t have your best interests in mind.
Without further ado, here it is: medical integration. We’ll explain why medically integrating your practice – the right way with professionals who have done it hundreds of times – is the way forward to protect yourself from politicians who lack insight into the benefits of chiropractic and a medical community that generally scoffs at holistic and alternative treatments.
A medically integrated practice allows you to offer a wide range of billable services, including rehabilitation, trigger point injections with natural chemicals and a whole assortment of traditional medical treatments that can complement and enhance your patient-first vision of healthcare.
This system allows you to create a more pliable and dynamic practice enabling you to shift and adjust to changes in federal rules, reimbursements or even patient demand. With multiple income streams, you can easily turn the tap down on one treatment insurers or regulators may decide is no longer viable while ramping up another that is coming into vogue.
The income stream remains steady while you provide patients with the latest and greatest in advances in medical and holistic treatments.
One huge caveat: The public views medically integrated offices with chiropractic as superior to chiropractic-only practices. As the chief executive of a medically integrated practice, you have the potential of tapping into the 100 percent of Americans who go to doctor’s offices as opposed to the 11 percent who go to chiropractors.
Is This Even Possible?
While medical integration of practices has undergone some fits and starts in the early 1990s as entrepreneurs recognized its value but were unsure how to make their way through the tangle of red tape, some companies like Advanced Medical Integration have risen to the forefront by providing targeted implementation systems. These tried and tested systems avoid the bureaucratic pitfalls that have plagued other startup consultation and implementation medical integration companies while conforming to all federal mandates and rules and complying with insurers’ service billing requirements.
Advanced Medical Integration has helped guide more than 100 practices into successful integration. Those companies flourish as chiropractors provide more comprehensive treatment packages to their patients without having to worry about sifting through reams of paperwork or fretting about service audits.
Bracing for an uncertain future may require a shift away from business as usual to a more futuristic and progressive approach to practice management. Start today on your bright future – click here or visit us on YouTube to learn more!
