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Return patients generate approximately 80 percent of clinic's revenue. Patient Relationship Management (PRM, also known as CRM, for Customer Relationship Management outside of healthcare) can enhance financial performance of the clinic by helping retain current and attract new patients. Effective PRM uses integrated data using patient travel card (SOAP notes), frequency recommendations (care plan), and billing (charges, payments, and balance).

PRM is a data-driven and patient-focused methodology to strategic practice building and effective patient relationship development. PRM helps identifying new service needs and then designing care programs and office and billing processes to meet the needs.

PRM also helps providing timely, patient centered, and efficient care, emphasizing preventive instead of reactive care. A basic PRM system captures patient information during entire period of the care plan in terms of functional health improvement, care plan implementation, and billing.

Patient Relationship Management Principle

PRM includes a travel card (TC), treatment frequency measures, and billing balance. PRM system tracks changes in the travel card, in Frequency Recommendation summary, and in billing balance, and generates reports to alert office management about lists of patients reaching important thresholds. The office manager or the doctor can review such reports and respond according to practice development strategy, using call centers, Internet, direct mail, or personal conversations during office visits.

Electronic Travel Card

An electronic equivalent of a paper travel card (Electronic Travel Card, or ETC) contains complete information about patient's health and care history. It is similar to electronic medical record and subject to same HIPAA compliance regulations. ETC includes:

• Numbers and dates of visits
• SOAP notes for each visit
• ICD-9 and CPT codes
• Care frequency recommendation summary
• X-rays and posture images

Frequency Recommendation

Frequency recommendation summary presents an interpretation of patient's compliance with doctor's recommendation in concise form and allows specification of PRM thresholds. Specifically, it has four parts:

• Weekly treatment frequency recommendation, typically a single digit between 1 and 3
• The number if weeks when the patient complied with the recommendation
• The total number of weeks for a given recommendation
• Care plan start date
• Number of missed appointments along with documented reasons for missing an appointment

For instance, a frequency recommendation summary [3X: 3/13] means that treatment is recommended three times per week for thirteen weeks, and the patient complied three weeks out of thirteen.

A treatment plan then is a list of such frequency recommendation summaries, for instance, [3X: 3/13], [2X: 15/15], [1X: 4/12].

In summary, Patient Relationship Management (PRM) can become a major differentiating factor in building successful and competitive chiropractic clinics. It requires integrated systems combining data about patient's health, care plans, and billing.

Yuval Lirov, PhD, author of "Mission Critical Systems Management" (Prentice Hall), inventor of patents in Artificial intelligence and Computer Security, and CEO of Vericle.net Billing Technologies and Services. Vericle unites hundreds of billing services across the nation. Its electronic medical billing software tracks payer performance from a single point of control and shares compliance rules globally. Yuval invites you to register to the next webinar on audit risk at BillingPrecision.com

Ever look into a window of a store only to be bored and underwhelmed? Excitement and interest are key components to the success of any retail display. The merchandise must certainly be interesting and inviting to get you into the store. However, the store fixtures can add interest also and are as much of the retail store presentation and its ultimate merchandising success as the product line itself.

Retail merchandising has always been about creating interest and some buzz about the product being sold. When buying at wholesale and reselling, the store owner has got to provide some excitement in order to get buyers interested and ultimately buying. Todays fixtures are not just the standard chrome or painted white shelves of the past. The store owner has an array of classy display units to choose from to create an interesting display to grab and hold the customers interest.

Retail fixtures now come in many styles. If you have a gift or accessories store, consider using some of the wrought iron bakers racks and display racks. These units are available with wire, wood and glass shelves to accommodate most small product lines. A variety of wholesale vendors have fixtures and display racks readily available ranging from classic old world designs to ultra modern styling. Pick a style that fits your store and then arrange merchandise in an interesting and inviting fashion. While chrome and basic black are good standbys when unsure of color direction, you can choose a color theme like gold, rust finish or other popular tone to enhance the look in your store.

Shelves and shelf style are an important choice also when choosing store fixtures. If you have a plant store or are merchandising baskets, racks or fixtures with wire shelves might be the right choice for you. Other small items like small decorative accessories display well on glass shelves. Glass allows light to pass through each shelf and does not create an extremely dark area near the bottom of the unit. While this can be offset with spot lighting in the store, the retailer generally needs all the available light to properly display retail merchandise. Wood, metal and other solid surface shelves can provide a great deal of weight bearing capacity but as mentioned limit the amount of light available near the floor to display merchandise. Choose your fixtures based on the type of merchandise your are displaying.

While plain white metal shelves are great for selling cereal, they leave much to be desired when selling collectibles and decorative accessories. Jane does not have to Plain when it comes to the retail store environment. Jazz it up a little buy choosing display fixtures with class and style to enhance your products. Inject some interest into your merchandising presentations and you will have a store filled with customers and a fat bottom line. Dont worry about Where Are My Customers. Instead concern yourself with more important details like making sure you have a good supply of printing tape for the cash register.

Art Allen: Contributing author and product design consultant

Retail Store Fixtures
Wholesale Display Racks