Streamline Your Administration with a Physiotherapy Bill Format for Administration

Physiotherapy bill format for Administration

Adam Corey thank you so much for coming together and kind of spending some time with me this morning um I would like to start right out of the gate with tell me about strata PT now Adam I you know you and I go way back way way back um but I would love to hear kind of the origin story Strat PT where it came from how it got started where where it's grown to its place in the market today so just any history you're willing to share I would love to hear it yeah now that sounds great and good good uh taking the time to meet with us here this morning Tony um yeah going way back history you know again as you as you're well aware of you know when when my wife Kim um you know when she was working in the outpatient setting you know helping to helping to run um your clinics in in you know Florida and Ohio you know at that time there were you know there was a lot of she was wearing a lot of hats of course as you know and and it really just saw the need in terms of you know being able to help do a lot of the same things she helped your practice with in terms terms of managing the building um and managing a lot of the administrative you know just dayto day operations all the different hats it takes to run run a practice um just really saw the need to be able to help even more practices you know and and and a lot of that you know starting off when Strat PT started back in 2010 as a billing revenue cycle management company at its core really and just really you know and at that time 10 years ago 13 years ago I guess now um you know it seemed like the billing wasn't you know it was complex but it's nothing like it is here in 202 three you know and I think for the first couple years you know helping practices really manage the billing collect every dollar that's owed you know and just you know but but she quickly also realized that practices were used in multiple systems to manage their schedule do documentation you know so a lot of different pieces um so that kind of kicked off a a a um you know C brought on a couple Engineers back in 2012 to really start to build what strata EMR is today um you know and I think really the the subtle but really important difference when you look at the EMR um is that it's what we call billing aware and and it was really built around the idea of how do we leverage technology to help facilitate a clean claim process um because be honest you know canly without that you know that EMR we wouldn't be able to drive such a high collection right we wouldn't be able to do manage the billing at such a high success rate that we do um because we you know we looked and said we can either hire more people or and there's always that room for for Human air there or we you know leverage greater technology um so over the past really 13 year year the last 10 years in particular it's just been a consistent focus on how do we consistently solve problems um you know for practice owners allow them to use a single system supported by a single company without a whole bunch of integration dependencies without a bunch of bons um and that's really what we've done continue to build out the technology you know at its core again focusing on the billing revenue cycle management getting getting providers pay you to every dollar their own you know and I think you know I'm sure you agree we've seen some a lot of the changes in the in Industry you know with some of these commercial pairs in particular and it's like holy smoke what's the flavor of the week here in terms of you know figuring out another reason not to pay a claim um so you know it's just a it's been been a labor of love in terms of continuing to build out the EMR you know had expor clinical documentation scheduling practice management what of the core functions on the Mr you know that's of course those features and you know a lot of the different features that you see in a lot of the Mr are there but again that subtle but important difference is having you know that bilding aware piece of real-time feedback reimbursement warnings you know how do we how do we take a lot of the back end middle and backend you know PR cycle management piece and bring it to the front end from Clinic um just to be able to again try High clean claim rate loow n rates you know High reimbursement so on so forth so I can go on and on for for hours on let me stop there um happy to happy to go into any other I I you know I heard you use the term billing aware I've heard you to use that term before I've never heard anybody else use that term and one of the things that I think is so interesting about what you guys are doing is um I don't know anybody else in the marketplace who's doing it the way you're doing it in other words you're charging for the billing and collection service but you're providing the EMR for free and it's one of those things where I haven't really been following the story of stratapt for years now and when guys kind of pop back up on the radar I was like what's going on what's different why is this unique and I look at the landscape I look at all the other billing companies out there and something that I've always said in my world is I I want therapists to understand how to do the billing I know you guys see it probably every single day probably more often than me but you hear the same story over and over there's a private practice owner they're killing themselves they're treating patients their schedules are full but they don't understand the billing they don't know where the money is they don't know what's going on and the worst scenario is they biller billing company went out of business they stopped communicating nobody knows what happened to them and now all of a sudden there's 5060 70,000 in AR that's just sitting out there and the therapist has no idea how to even access it so with with my I teach a course it's how to do Medicare billing it's a really simple basic course but the reason why I started doing that was because I would see therapists in a position of vulnerability and even when therapists would talk to me about well should I do it in-house should I Outsource it until you guys kind of came around I would always say you have to do it in-house because the odds are your billing company is going to go out of business there are so many really just like they're barely hanging on but when I talked to Paul when I talked to your CEO when I started researching you guys again this this now opened a new opportunity for me to say hey now there is something that I genuinely believe is going to be around your guys's focus on technology your integration between the billing the collections the software kind of putting it all together I do think that it provides a unique position in the marketplace that nobody else is really going in that direction so that being said for people watching people listening give me an idea of kind of who the ideal candidate I know you can serve lots of different providers but in the dream scenario who's the person sitting at home right now who's like I need to reach out to these guys I need to know what they can offer because I'm not getting what I need like who's the perfect business for you yeah great great question Tony and I think you know a lot of lot of different things you mentioned there um you know but to answer your question directly I think you know first of all we we've you know we stayed focused on physical occupational and speech therapy so we you know over the years we haven't gone beyond those you know those disciplines um but but I think really you know when we look at very specific and a lot of the conversations we have with with practice owners that are reaching out they are highly emotional conversations because they are in you know a very vulnerable state they're in a position where they haven't been able to take a vacation for the past 10 you know 10 years they haven't been able to give their employees a raise they haven't you know and that's really the difference when you look at from a collection rate their their collection rates are 50 60 70% at best you know when you look at that between being profitable and not for a lot of these practice owners so you know I think that's really when you look at the ideal practi and the ones that we just I love you know love being able to help it's it's those that are reaching out in a position where they're not they don't have the domain experience on the billing to be able to feel confident bringing in house number one um but they're also in a position it's like man how do I but but a lot of times their only option they feel like is I just need to bring this in house because what else do I do I've worked with you know two three four other billing companies they either gone out of business like you said or they just you know haven't treated my money like my collections the way that I you know they should um so they figure let's bring it in house well a lot of those practice centers aren't in a position to bring it in house you know there's a lot of practices you I know you've got a lot of success with be like you mentioned bringing in house and managing that but that that practice owner that just really first of all wants to run a profitable practice they want to they want to continue to to focus on treating patients growing their case load without you know worrying about the colle worrying about the next rule United Healthcare or or sitting is going to roll out um you know and really you know keeping a consistent you know a focus on again growing case load treating P or or not or having the ability to take a step back and actually focus on the business instead of in the business you know and I think a lot of these practice owners are just so deep in the weeds and you know their stress levels continue to increase week over week month over month right and you know and they say what you know how is this does this even make sense anymore you know those are the ones that really you know really um you know I just hate to see you have some great clinicians great business owners out there that are ready to just hang it up because they say reimbursements continue to decline you know we can't do this anymore and the reality is you really can if you have a very strong you know billing and and revenue cycle management process in place or team in place to help you get there um so Cory I don't know if you you know kind no that's exactly I've had several calls in the last few weeks with those exact scenarios and sometimes even like my biller just walked out on me you know or gave me a two we notice and we all know how hard it is to find good qualified staff you know they try to hire somebody but then they realize they just don't have the experience they need to efficiently run their their practice for them let me ask you guys a little more granular now is there a threshold like I I work with a lot of therapists that are just absolutely right out of the gate they've never treated a Medicare beneficiary they've never generated a claim they they're starting from nothing they might have been therapists for 20 years but they're just starting their business and then I also speak to therapists that are like one two clinicians and maybe an admitt person they're sitting at around 300 to 500,000 in collections um they're looking to kind of grow the team in scale they have the opportunity but they don't have the infrastructure is there a minimum maximum threshold for who you guys are working with these days no short answer is no you know and that those are always the the ones that always are kind of you know interesting when people reach out and they say I'm not sure if I'm big enough to be able to work you know and we look at that we said I don't I don't look some of our greatest success stories you look at from a practice startup that's doing several million dollars you know in collections now um over and they've been able to focus on continuing to grow their business um so we don't look at it as practice startup versus established practices versus multilocation multi-state you know I think now there's certainly different needs at those different stages as you know you know and um but a lot of the things that we looked at is if that practice owner you know willing to invest in and continueing to grow their business and and that's what they want if they're optimizing for that type of growth then we can absolutely help them get there you know and I but I think that really and you know full transparency I think starting off there may be there's a lot of technology that they may not as a practice startup they may not you know may not be relative Rel you know may not make sense for them or is it something they they need but having a platform that's able to scale so when they do get to that level if they you know if that's what they're going for then you know we can still continue to help them so um but a lot of it comes down not everyone you know for those that are that are optimizing for growth and it's your point Tony it's like we have there are that's another kind of you know group of practice owners that they're stuck in that that location they want to add two or three they have the ability but they're afraid to do so because they feel like based on their current collection their current AR that's just going to compound found you know and they won't be able to turn turn profit so yeah you know another element that's interesting just before you guys we jumped on this call I had recorded a video I've got it scheduled to publish and one of the elements in the video was I said you know if you want me to turn something I love into something I hate make me turn it into a business and then make my livelihood dependent on that business so in other words there are so many clinicians out there that are like I love being a therapist I love what I do I'm really good at what I do patients are requesting to work with me but I can't kind of do that working for someone else so in their mind they're thinking okay open a private practice that's my only option to really expand and grow as a clinician but then you guys know it soon as you make that switch you're like oh wait a minute I'm not a therapist anymore now I'm a business owner now I need to market now I need to hire now I need to fire and build systems and do all of these other things and so again when I go back to kind of the 20 year ago model of doing medical billing compared to today I think you guys really kind of embody the partnership model rather than I'm hiring you to do my billing it's like okay these guys are Partners now and in that partnership you know Paul again your CEO posted something recently where he mentioned the the very very very High collection rate that you guys have and that's awesome and so when I look at a therapist who saysay Medicare is cutting by three and uh 3.4% next year they're looking to find margin I really think a big part of finding that margin margin is improving efficiency which you guys are better than most Private Practice owners are going to be at improving efficiency for billing because that's what you do and then freeing up my time and my staff's time so that we can focus on other things you know like right now within our organization and if you remember back when we were working together starting my physical therapy practice it was like okay we used to Outsource then we brought it inhouse because it was more efficient with the technology of 2001 to do the billing inhouse I could spend 60 70,000 on an inhouse you know team to do my billing at that time but now the technology has changed so much has gotten so much better that even for me I don't call myself a physical therapy clinic I call myself a billing company that also does physical therapy because the majority of our time is spent optimizing for billing and collections that's the reality of it and so even for me at this stage in 2023 compared to 2001 I would consider going back to Outsource uh billing and collections because it would free me up to spend more time on YouTube spend more time building an audience building a community recruiting clinician s that are out there that really want to deliver the kind of quality care that I want my company known for delivering you know so could you talk a little bit about that partnership and the fact that you guys have access and resources to information that a single owner operator doing their own billing in house just doesn't have access to like changes in regulations changes in reimbursements how to optimize you know even just something as simple as a 59 modifier like how do you view yourself as the partner for the business as opposed to just an outsourced billing company yeah we we talked a lot about that Tony and I think that's such an important piece of of of looking at it as a true true partnership and not just another billing company not just another EMR company then you hope and pray that they communicate with each other you know and I think for for so many years over the past you number of years that that the industry has really looked there's been so much fragmentation then so much focus on integration do you do integrate with that company or do integrate with you know and at the end of the day we've looked at and we came you know the other direction as we talked about from you know built from the ground up to say we're not going to you know we're not going to continue to to rely on integration beyond their connection with our Clearing House and the payers um but you know and and not looking at it as just another billing company not just another EMR company you know and I think that again that subtle but important difference is why we we've been able to you know create really the you know really build out the EMR platform as it is today to be that billing aware to really you know have you know just a a seamless connection between the administrative side the clinical side the the villain side of the the business um you know so you know I think when we look at um you know in terms of of companies that come into it you know we see it all the time they come into and say we're start if it's a practice startup or hey I just need to find my EMR you know and Cory and I talk about it all the time of you know it's like they're looking for the EMR first and then from there it's like second billing is almost secondary right and they get you paid part um and I've always you know I've said for years that you know I don't mean to tribalize it too much but the EMR is really the easy part in my opinion I think you know really where a lot of that complexity comes is keeping up with the payer changes keeping up with the the modifier changes you know keeping up with you look at what United healthare just did recently with all of a sudden bringing back time in and time out and it's like okay do we just require now all of our therapists to document time in and timeout or do we leverage technology and put a payer rule in place to say if a clinician opens up their clinical documentation time in time out it's going to it's going to prompt them to complete it because we know that United Healthcare is this patient has this you know this patient policy so it's that you know that's one of many examples when you look at just being you know um you know just you know you again leveraging technology because I think over the years we've seen some of the best billers and you could have a great biller in house or you know and we've but their their limitation they're limited by the technology that they're using you know and I think that's the difference of Technology from early 2000s to where Tech technology is today um and really where it's going to be 10 years from now right I mean I think a lot of that's going to continue to evolve at even you know faster faster Pace um and you know in with not to not to nerd out too much but when you look at you know we talked about pair rules engine and a lot of the flexibility in there you know that also starts at the credentialing level too you know each each practice has different you know the ways they're contracted with payers and based on that Contracting you know there there's a whole credentialing whole workflow in there to make sure we're not just submitting claims before they should or making sure that certain pay or rule requirements are on there so again there's that's where it all again using the EMR to facil help facilitate a clean claim process that starts in the very very beginning you know but so I want to be mindful and respectful over your time we've got about five more minutes I would love to hear just kind of a general overview what's the onboarding process look like in two scenarios one for the therapist who's just starting a new business they don't have an EMR they don't have any history they're literally starting from scratch what what's it like what's the time frame do you guys do credentialing or Contracting with them or how does that go and then the second scenario is the therapist or business that's been in operation they have some history behind them but they're just not getting the service that they need and they're looking to make a change kind of time frames and responsibilities like how does that look yeah so I would say from an on boarding that's was one of the things a couple years ago um you know and this goes back to providing you know making sure people everybody's on the same page our team your team you know the team that's coming on board um and having full transparency same thing on the reporting side you know and what you know one of the things we we learned you know many years ago is it was important to have a clear outline and we created what we call an onboarding dashboard that shows you know here are the different stages um to make sure eyes are dotted you know teas or crops because again that's another that's another I think so many of these practices have so much PTSD from previous migrations they've had and said oh my Revenue came to a screeching hall for for you know for a month or two months or I've heard as much more than that it's like holy smokes so you know one of the thing that's super important to us number one is to make sure there's a clear outline you know and that's all starts with that onboarding dashboard number two on the customer service side making sure that they've got a dedicated point of contact UM that onboarding man work walk come through here the state because at the end of the day there's going to be questions you know as they come up um the really the difference between a practice startup and an established practice you know just to answer your question there Tony is practice startup um they're obviously not going to have you know the the bill they're not going to have a lot of these contracts in place yet currently we're not providing any credentialing Services um we you know we do um put a lot of focus on making sure if they are pending you know let's say their Medicare approval or even a reassignment from certain therapists that they're bringing on board or um Blue Cross any of the other approval put different credentialing holds in place that way they can start if we're able to since they can backdate their you know from you know for Medicare in particular um they can start treating patients they can start documenting they can even submit their charges we put that into a kind of a holding tank there wait till we get that pan approval and then we can flush all those you know all those claims through once we hit the green light um so that's probably the biggest difference on established up front but the most important thing for an establish is that when we pick a go live date in average you know people say how long is it going to take to get up and going right I would say on average anywhere from two to four weeks um and that's really not really a it's more of a a payer limitation just kind of timeline we'll get the account set up within about 24 to 48 hours um get that onboarding you know they'll start on boarding but really the EDI erra we handle all the enrollments there so that's another piece you know depending on what Clearing House they're on sometimes that's quicker than others we work four different Clearing House Partners um you know and really just making sure that the the Ed enrollments are switched it's going to take anywhere from two to 10 days depending on the payer um so during that time that's when we're working on you know getting training set up clinical training admin training um training on average is you know initial 60 to 9 90 minutes on the clinical admin um and I would say at that point 95% of Paces are ready to ready to hit the ground run now there's always going to be questions you know as in the first couple weeks that's that's part of it um but really you know the the most important thing for us though is that we we set a go live date that we're submitting claims on that go live date that there is zero you know we're not holding claim L it's pending and by approval or something like that that we are saying hey if we're going to start on December 1st and we are submitting claims on December 1st you know as long as your team is completing documentation and submitting charges over to us so um it really is a you know but a lot of it comes down to just being very transparent being just very you know we're not gonna we are not the company that's going to over promise on a deliver and say hey we're gonna We can start you next week because that's not reality you know when it comes to managing Ed enrollments and depending on the size of that practice you know we've had practices that are multilocation multi-state there's there's a lot more that goes into it obviously than a single single location um so and then the last part I'll just add to that is really comes down just managing setting expectations with their team you know and figure an out they know their team better than than you know better than we do um in terms of what is that managing the anxiety of going through a change and ing documentation um we try to make it as easy as possible but you know change is change right so um you know I think a lot of that comes down to just managing expectations and it starts with us Ling out a clear plan through the onboarding dashboard and with that with that onboarding manager so um again if you go on even more you know go on more and more on that but I think that's you know making sure eyes are dotted te's are crossed what we call the billing transition form um you know that's kind of sets the stage to say hey are we set up as you know billing as a group are we building as an individual are we you know what is our credentialing status um and then figure out what that data migration based on the current Pro you know current platform is um we help with that data migration process as well so that's awesome and and I know it's got to be so unique to each practice with that being said what is the best way for people to reach out to you uh you and Corey Adam and Corey you guys are the main team that people would be connecting with yeah Cory I'll let you I'll let you go and take that so yes absolutely um like you said I'm qu I am a clinician by background I am an occupational therapist and I have about 20 years of experience in operations so it's been a lot of fun talking with the different therapists so they can just reach out to our website and they can schedule an appointment book an appointment with me and I'll do a demo and go over in detail strata and I can do a demo of the EMR and answer any questions they have awesome so what I'll do is I'll grab your guys' contact information I'll put in this description of the video and anywhere we share it Corey Adam I just want to say thank you so much for spending this time on this morning and just kind of filling me in you know I I I think it's so great to see you guys really start to get the word out there you've been in the background forever I mean and and knowing where you came from I I really feel comfortable confident knowing that there's a place for you in this market and I'm so glad that you're getting the word out to the therapists who really need to hear it so thank you guys for talking to me today absolutely appreciate you having us T thank you