Moving to Cash

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

I noticed that many therapists go through a certain progression. When they first get into practice, they're not on any insurance panels, so they start as a cash practitioner. Sometimes they start at a lower price. After a while, they say, "I'm missing a lot of new patients because I'm not on the insurance panels." They get on some or all of the insurance panels that they can get on and they take insurance for a period of time.
After that, they say, "I'm not getting paid very much by the insurance. I think I should go back to cash." They go back to a cash practice. Sometimes slowly over a period of time and sometimes all at once, but that's the cycle. Cash, insurance, cash. Now, you can get fixated in any area. For instance, you can stay cash and low cost or you can stay insurance through the rest of your life, but most people would like to be on a cash practice where they have plenty of new patients and they're getting paid full price by these cash patients.
Here's what I suggest you do. If you're in the cash era, you might want to go to insurance, but you may want to go straight to cash. If you're the insurance era, you may want to go to cash by kicking your low-paying insurance companies to the curb. In other words, if somebody is not paying you more than $68 a visit, you may just get rid of that insurance company. Now, a few things you have to bear in mind. If that insurance company is getting you lots of new patients and they're getting lots of new patients because you're on their panel, then you may want to stay with them.
On the other hand, if you have an insurance company that you don't get many new patients from and the ones you do get from them, you're not getting because you're on the panel, you're getting because of your website or something else, then you ought to kick those low payers to the curb. Think about it. If you're insurance, you may want to start moving a little more toward cash by kicking the low payers to the curb and having those people that come in be put on a cash program.

This is Dave Kats. Thank for listening.