Hi, this is David Kats for Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you.

Have you ever noticed that some therapists schedule more frequently than other therapists? You go to some therapists, they have you come in once or twice, maybe three or four times, and you're done. The other therapists, have you come in 15 or 20 times, and you get more care. Now, I don't know what's right for each particular patient, but I will tell you that the national average is between 12 and 15 visits. Since there's a dropout, you're going to see the average patient 12 to 15 times, you're probably going to schedule them on an average of about 18 times, and that's what we see.

Now I realize some people go on for two years, and they need your care for the rest of their life, and some people don't need one or two times, but I will tell you this. If all you're doing is scheduling a time or two, and then releasing patients, you got to ask, why am I not practicing like the rest of the therapists in the...

Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you.

Ironically, some therapists disobey the law without knowing it, and they do it this way. They give people breaks in that they don't have to pay their deductible, or they don't have to pay their copay, but the law is very clear. You're supposed to charge everybody their deductible and everybody their copay.

Now, if there's an occasional financial hardship, I certainly understand that you should have them fill a financial hardship form. I used to work with a company that was traded on a New York Stock Exchange. They said, if any doctor, I was working with doctors, and if any doctor gives away more than 5% of his or her services, talk to them about it because it's becoming too much. Don't give away more than 5% of your services. Make sure that you collect all your deductibles and all your copays. The patients will respect you more, and you'll collect more money, and you'll be within the law. That's the most...

Hi. This is David Kats with Therapist Consultants. I have a tip for you.

If you practice by yourself, then this particular tip may not be apropos, but if you have any therapists that practice with you, or if you have any staff or any volunteers that help you, then you need to know who sees your patient's PHI, their personal health information because HIPAA says, we have to have a list in our office of everybody in our office that's capable of seeing the patient's health history.

Right now, make a list. Even if it's you, just make a list of one, and just put in your HIPAA manual that you're the only person that has access to that health history. That way, if you're ever checked out by someone, you will be compliant as far as that part of the HIPAA law is concerned. If you have employees, if you have other therapists, if you have somebody that comes in and works for you, even on a volunteer basis, make sure that you get them all on the list. If it's just you, put you on the list, and...

Hi, this is David Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you.

If you're going to expect your patients to come in and know what they're going to get for care, you should schedule them in advance. I remember the first time I taught a therapist how to advance multiple schedule their patients, she had somebody set up for 18 visits, and she said, "Before you go home, let's go ahead and set up all 18 visits," and they did.

When she came out of the room, the first thing she said to me was, "They actually like to be scheduled in advance." The answer is, "Of course, they do." Don't you want to know what's going to be happening in advance? Wouldn't you like to know about all 18 visits instead of getting strung out one at a time, one at a time, one at a time, have schedule conflicts and things like that? Yes.

Here's what I suggest you do. On the second visit, when you have a knowledge of how many times you're going to see the patient, sit down with that patient, use a 365-day...

Hi, this is David Kats from Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you. One of the things you should do on your website, if you haven't already done it, is add your forms to the website, and then step two, make sure people print those forms off and fill them out, or better yet, use something like Jotforms and let them fill outright online. You see, when you have your forms there so they can fill them out before they come in, a few things happen. First of all, they do a better job filling out the form because they aren't under the gun to get the form done so they can go back and see you.

The second thing, when they do their form they buy into the idea of coming in and seeing you, so you'll have less no-shows. This is a very simple thing you have to do once and you never have to do it again, and that is just put your forms on your website. Either have them print them off and bring them in with them, or you can have them on a Jotform. By the way, one other thing I wanted to tell...

Hi, this is David Kats with Therapist Consultants. I have a tip for you.

In fact, I have a question for you. How is your phone answered? I knew a company in town here once and they had a business and they didn't answer the phone during the daytime. Can you imagine having a business that depends on customers and then they wouldn't answer their phone?

Wait a minute. That's what 90% of the therapists do right now. They're busy in the therapy room and they don't answer their phone. What about at night? What about people that call after hours? They don't get a live answering person either. Here's what I encourage you to do. I encourage you to get your phone answered live both day and night. I don't care who answers it as long as they have the ability to schedule a patient and let you know about it because it's very important.

Now, you say, "Well, we don't get many people call after hours. We don't get many people call when I'm with patients, or I call them right back." Yes, but here's...

Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you.

Whether you're an insured practice or cash practice, there are certain things you have to do to ensure you have the right patient sitting in front of you. Let me give you an example. When I was in practice, I practiced as a chiropractor. I had a young lady come in. Her name was Trish, and we treated her for a long time, about six months, and she eventually went away. Two years later, she called back in. She said, "This is Trish Brown." I said, "Okay, good." I'm just making up the last name. She said, "Trish Brown." I said, "Okay, good." We said, "Why don't you come on back in, you were here about two years ago." She said, "No, I never been in before." We said, "Is your address this and that?"

We gave her the address. She said, "Yes." I said, "You've been in before. You were in about two years ago." She said, "No, I had never been in before." We made her appointment as a new patient. When she came through the...

Hi. This is Dave Kats for Therapists Consultants and I have a tip for you.

I have something that I think you're really going to enjoy. We have started a new podcast. The podcast is not specifically for therapists, but for anybody who wants to grow and improve their lot in life. I do it with Dr. Mike, a friend of mine, and we talk about something important as far as improving your life and your lifestyle every week.

Now, you can get to the podcast just by coming to therapistsconsultants.com, or going to any podcast organization and just look up David Kats. That's my name. David Kats. K-A-T-S. You'll find the podcast. I think you will really enjoy it because it will help you and it will help your patients have a better life. This is Dave Kats. Thanks for listening.

Hi, this is David Kats from Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you. There's a strong division between being a therapist and being a life coach, but more and more I see more therapists are wanting to do life coaching too. Therapists sometime deal with the problems that people have, where life coaching, a lot of times it's solving day to day problems, and it's maybe a little bit more fun for a lot of people.

Now, you have to be really careful when you go into life coaching. First of all, let me say this, I would encourage you to do some life coaching, but you have to be really careful that you differentiate with your patients what is counseling and what is life coaching. Some people say that are authorities on this, that if you once counseled somebody, you shouldn't be a life coach to them. That you should decide at the beginning either you're going to counsel them, or you're going to be a life coach for them, and then stay with that procedure. In fact, if you'll do a life...

Hi, this is Dave Kats, therapist consultants and I have a tip for you, I have a scenario for you and then I have a question for you. Here's the scenario. Let's say that you're in practice, you have a nice website, but you haven't really changed anything on your website, or added any articles to your website for the last six months. Now, here's the rest of the scenario. Let's say there's another therapist that was in practice six months ago, but they went out of business, say right down the street from you. They went out of business six months ago, so nothing has changed on their website. What's the difference between your website and a person who's been on a business for six months?

If you haven't changed anything on your website, how do the search engines even know that you're in business anymore? One of the ways they know you're in business is that you constantly see new things on your website. To that end, you probably should be putting blogs on your website. Now it's easy to...