EPISODE 356: The Virtual Front Desk with Pablo Blanco

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Marketing Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] All right. Got Pablo on the podcast again, not the first, not the last. And we're going to dive into a new topic. Uh, today I, you know, I just want to set a little bit of context is I've get a lot of chiropractors that fall into three categories that we're going to talk about today. And that's the lone wolf chiropractor that doesn't have a front desk person isn't quite there yet to hire someone.

Uh, the second is, uh, I know some chiropractors that have busy practices and at some point they did have a front desk person, but they've opted for a virtual front desk. And then lastly is, um, practices that do have a full time front desk person, but want to supplement the phone answering for maybe after hours.

And, and weekends and stuff. And so, uh, welcome to the podcast, Pablo.

Pablo Blanco: Thank you for having me over again. I feel like it's been a nice journey in the last, [00:01:00] almost closing in on a decade. Almost if, if we think about it, uh, I'm always happy being here with you and, uh, sharing some insights, some, some knowledge and some input as well.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And obviously in the past, we've talked a lot about ads and Facebook and Google ads and that type of marketing and, and, and you're with avid med and you guys still do all that stuff, but, um, over the, over a period of time, you've, you've also added in. This kind of virtual, uh, you know, front desk in a sense.

And so tell me a little bit about the, the background of that before we dive into these particular topics. Sure.

Pablo Blanco: Uh, great. Thank you. Thank you. So, uh, you know, as you mentioned before with marketing, we, we did start helping doctors, uh, promote and chiropractors, physical therapists, promote their practice. Um.

You know, through Google ads through meta email campaigns and, uh, that led to, uh, branding, right? And some of the web tools that [00:02:00] we've offered as well, uh, from web development, scheduling, appointment tools, et cetera. And. We're kind of moving forward with our clients and realizing, Hey, there's one component that, um, is missing.

And we noticed that right off the bat when we were doing marketing, and that was the effectiveness of the practice and the patient management, right? When it came to, to leads and marketing, right? We want to get new business, but hey, are we dropping the balls? So, um, we split that two ways. One obviously was cost and we have to address cost.

And the second one, uh, which was our priority was being more effective at, um, managing, you know, these leads and being able to pick up the phone and call call back. And then that led to, you know, calling back existing patients, right? For reminders back office work and [00:03:00] just being more effective and assertive.

And doing so.

Dr. Kevin Christie: No, that's great. You know, and I want to give a little bit of a little context here. And, you know, ultimately good business. Um, you're removing as many barriers as possible for that particular customer in our case, patient. And you want to try to remove as many barriers, make it as easy for them to be a patient, a new patient, an existing patient, a reactivated patient, right?

You want to, um, Remove those barriers. Um, there are a lot of doctors and chiropractors that sometimes, and I think wrongly, um, they kind of hang their hat on being special and just doing everything the way they want to do it and then just making the patient kind of, uh, deal with. With that and, and, and I, and I get it and some of those folks are busy or, uh, they're busy [00:04:00] enough, but it's not a great patient experience.

And one of the things of that is, is, is definitely ease of scheduling ease of getting ahold of you, uh, making it easy for them to, to be a patient or to schedule a followup, uh, or reactivated a patient. And I see too many practices. Um, struggle with that. Do you see that across different medical fields?

Pablo Blanco: I would say every week, every, every, every week that we, that comes across the table.

Yes.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah. And what are some of the things you're noticing? Is it just, um, you know, the, the front desk is so busy and then, and then they just put people on hold or it goes to voicemail that, you know, they don't get called back. Like what are the, some of the issues you're seeing in practices?

Pablo Blanco: Right. So I I'll, I'll name that the top four.

I'm in fact, those, those are the most common ones, uh, starting with you. Just set it yourself, overloaded front desk staff. Right. The front [00:05:00] desk for the longest time has been a resource to dump everything else that we feel overwhelmed with or if, if a new plan comes into play, uh, to have the front desk kind of oversee or make the calls or, you know, follow up on or fill out the, the documentation, et cetera.

Um, so they're overloaded, right? Overloaded front desk staff is, is comes in first. Um, Second, we have, you know, clients that call and say, Hey, we need someone that is really skilled and knowledgeable, not only with customer service, but in some cases, depending on your model, whether you're insurance based or cash based model, uh, in sales.

Right. And they struggle with the sales process, um, turnover rates. Turnover is a big one. Turnover is huge. And, and people realize that when you start adding the numbers throughout the year, you realize how [00:06:00] expensive it really is to hire someone and then have to rehire someone again, right? There's a lot of administrative, um, and receptionist roles that are out there, um, with high turnover rates.

Yeah. Um, And then last comes in. It's just the unproductive hiring process. It's lengthy. It takes time. Who's gonna coach who will on board who will train right? It takes time from from anyone. If you have a busy practice, you certainly don't have the time, right? To take a side and say, Hey, let me coach this person and bring them on board.

Um, and if you're not busy, you also don't, if it's sales focus or sales driven or customer service driven, uh, your, your goal is to go out there and get new business. You can't be hiring someone internally and coaching them. It just counterproductive. Right. Uh, so, so those are some of the, the, the main reasons why, [00:07:00] um.

We get those calls from, from potential opportunities for clients in the industry.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, no, it makes sense. And, um, there's a company called the scheduling Institute that we've, uh, we've done some work with, uh, we've collaborated with, they came and presented at our mastermind group last year in Tampa. And, and they really specialize on training the front desk people and the actual people that you have.

And, and I want to bring up two things. Uh, that that they talk about. Um, one is, is they, they do a good job of reduce kind of, uh, deducting basically what you may be losing in a year, uh, because of bad phone answering. And, you know, they'll, they have this kind of formula of how much a new patient is worth and they've done a ton of.

Research and calling practices and how many, uh, new patients that call and it doesn't get picked up or it's not effective at [00:08:00] all. And a percentage of people that are finding your practice and, but they're not married to your practice. And so if they can't get ahold of you on Monday morning at nine, they're calling the next option.

That was kind of a toss up for them. And they're getting ahold of that person. And they're going to that practice. And so they've shown how much a lot of practices can lose because of that. So that's one thing I want to mention that they, they talk a lot about again, you can visit them if you want to, want to find out more.

The second thing that they talk about, which I kind of like, and this kind of adds a fourth category that we could talk about today, but, um, they're actually believers in taking the. The phone answering away from the front desk, but in this scenario, you would have a front desk person, but they're really focused on the patients that are physically there and the things that are physically there.

And then what they [00:09:00] recommend is that if you had a 2nd front desk person, that would be in an office somewhere and the, or, or, yeah, if you had multiple locations, you'd have a call center, um, of 1 of your team members, but essentially. The idea is that you're getting the phone away from the front desk that's being answered away from the front and the person that is at the front desk is able to focus on the patient experience and give an A plus experience there.

And so I could see a scenario here. Um. Where you could potentially, you know, be a supplement virtual front desk where you could a practice that's busy could still have a front desk potentially, but that person's focus on the human interaction in person and then the calls are being answered, um, virtually.

Is that, does that make sense? Absolutely.

Pablo Blanco: Absolutely. There, there are, um. Seven and and I'll go over them real quickly. Um, key services that a [00:10:00] virtual agent can cover for for a practice or a provider. Um, and those are, you know, the new and returning patient calls, right? Scheduling. Uh, if if you're marketing lead management, right?

So your leads, um. And, and I'll go into some of the medical and the MDSs and Theosis as well, but pharmacy calls, pre certifications, pre-authorizations, insurance verification, medical billing. Right? Can all be done virtually. You don't need to be there in person meeting and greeting the, the, the patient to do a lot of this work.

Right. Um, and to, and. You know, to re reinforce what you said earlier, you absolutely want to have someone in your practice delivering great customer service in person, but doing more of the patient management face to face while somebody else is doing all the back end work that that takes a lot of time.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Yeah, no, that's great. That makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you brought that up because it's more than just [00:11:00] say, answering the phones and scheduling. But yeah, uh, the. Pre authorizations and the insurance verifications and things like that take up a lot of a front desk time that could be offloaded as well.

So I'm glad you brought up some of the other services that could could be offered in this scenario. So, so perfect. I'm glad we touched on on that kind of 4th 1. so we're gonna go back to the, the 1st, 3, um. You know, the, the lone wolf chiropractor, there's a, there's a lot out there. There's, I know a lot listening, uh, where they don't have a front desk person.

They, a lot of times we'll have online scheduling, which I highly recommend. A lot of chiropractors have any way to supplement. I don't online's not the. And I'll be all, but it definitely reduces a barrier for people. Uh, but a lot of the lone wolf chiropractors that don't have a front desk, uh, they, they, they rely on the online scheduling, which is fine, but then they're trying to answer the phone.

And, and as you could imagine, uh, that lone [00:12:00] wolf chiropractor is probably treating patients a good amount of the operating hours and kind of going back to the scheduling Institute. They, they think they earmark, like how many hours between 8. 00 AM. And 6 p. m. are your phones not being answered. And so if you, um, do have a front desk and you're, you're, you know, and yourself, but you're, uh, you know, you take an hour lunch break, everybody or two hours and it's not being answered.

That's, that's a prime time for people to be calling. And if they're not getting hold of you, they may call the other person. Uh, but imagine if you're a lone wolf between the eight to six and how often you can't answer the phone because you're with a patient, like that's a lot of missed opportunities there.

Um, and I think chiropractors need to really consider, um, solving that. And obviously what, what you offer does that the, the second thing I want to, I want to talk about and then get your opinion on it was, well, we have a chiropractor in our mastermind group. Who's got a busy practice and has multiple providers and has [00:13:00] actually.

Uh, since COVID, um, decided not to have a, a physical front desk person and they've done this really nice virtual setup and I got a computer set up and they, they do a, send a nice video to a new patient that walks them through getting to the office and getting to the front desk and what it's like, and that we're not going to have a front desk person, but we're going to greet you when you get there.

And like, they got this whole thing that they built around it, which was really nice. And they have, they have a different type of system front desk, but I'm starting to see some chiropractors do that. Like they have a. a full practice. And sometimes they have CAs and they've got other doctors, but they're deciding to go this route.

Are you seeing that a little bit? And in what you guys offer, would this be a great potential, uh, remedy for that? Uh, absolutely.

Pablo Blanco: There, there's, there's. It's definitely a transition and, uh, I think you, you mentioned two scenarios right now. Uh, you know, the lone wolf [00:14:00] and then, uh, that busy practice who is now transitioning or, or implementing the, these new, uh, tools, techniques, services, right.

Um, and, and I want to touch base with both, quite frankly, I think the lone wolf. The person that you say isn't quite there yet. The cons to hiring someone really is cost and time, right? We hear it all the time, like, it's like, I don't have the money for it yet, or it costs too much money, or should I invest in marketing versus having that 1st, et cetera.

Right? And then the time, uh, you're, you're busy seeing as many patients as possible or trying to see as many patients as possible. Uh, but the pros of having someone virtual is the relationship building. Um, you as a lone wolf cannot pick up the phone and spend, you know, ample time nourishing and building a relationship with someone over the phone because your job essentially is to be treating the patient.

You should be seeing your patients. Right? [00:15:00] Um, but an individual should be able to answer the calls. As you say, those are the inbound calls, uh, and, and, and nourish and build those relationships. Right. They were calling and they're asking for Sandy or, or Peter, right, on the phone. They know who Sandy or Peter is, and they're getting a call back from them.

Uh, but something that's overlooked A hundred percent of the time are outbound calls. Yes, you can have the phone ring. The lone wolf is out there thinking, well, let's wait for the phone to ring and it's going to be an opportunity. But how about looking at it from the other perspective? Are you calling back on potential opportunities or patients that you've had in the past?

Not just for the reminder of an appointment, but just to check up and see how they're doing, right? Yeah. Yep. So that's a good executed.

Dr. Kevin Christie: That's a great point. I want to touch on that because like in our office, um, we have what's called a no futures system and we learned that from Jay Greenstein and essentially [00:16:00] we track patients that have no future appointment, but they should, they're on an active care plan, um, but they've fallen off for whatever reason, uh, we track that in our front desk makes that.

I would assume a lot of, um, a lone wolves for sure, or be really busy practices that are kind of overloaded, um, are falling off on that and checking up on it. And one of the, one of the ways we, we talk about it is that. Yeah, like we want to get that person back in. But it's also good, um, healthcare to check up on them.

And that's, that's how we make the call is more as like, oh, you know, just, Hey Bob, just wanted to check to see how your low back was doing. Um, we know we were under active care, active care in our office and we wanted to see how you're doing and then, you know, let Bob talk about how they're doing and then obviously give them opportunity to try to get back on the schedule and, and encourage that.

Um, but it's, I doubt that's being done in some of these scenarios and this could be something. You know, a lot of chiropractors I talked to [00:17:00] the busy ones, they're reluctant to, to, um, implement certain strategies, like say a no futures in this and that, because they're just already overwhelmed. They're like, I don't have the manpower for it.

And so outbound calls, like you said, could be a great thing to do as well.

Pablo Blanco: Absolutely. We found a lot of opportunity. Um, and call it low hanging fruit, right? Uh, you're, you're just returning calls for reaching out to your existing patient database or, or leads that have come through in the past. And maybe last summer they were not interested, but this summer they may be or this spring.

Right, right around the corner, um, but it is definitely having that strategy and having someone that is reliable, understands, um, the industry, right? We're in the healthcare industry and is significantly different than, than selling, you know, online donuts and, and, uh, vehicles, right? Um, it, it's definitely got it has its, um, [00:18:00] it's areas that, that need someone with.

Uh, the right knowledge and training, uh, but, but executing those calls have been effective. Yeah.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And let me touch on a, you mentioned healthcare. Um, I know a couple of people might be thinking, uh, tell us about HIPAA.

Pablo Blanco: Extremely important. I mean, we again, you and I have been in the healthcare space for for for over a decade.

Um, and, uh, you know, handling patient information is extremely important. If if you're sourcing out, considering thinking, or now just learning about higher hiring someone. Uh, to work remote virtually, uh, it is extremely important for that company that's offering the service, uh, to, to ensure that their employees are HIPAA trained and certified.

And you also want to make sure that the company is following, you know, strict guidelines for, for handling [00:19:00] patient information. Right? You will be sharing access to your patient database, your E. M. R. Records, scheduler, et cetera. And you will be receiving calls where you're taking down notes, um, from patient complaint, right?

What their problem is issue, et cetera. And their health. So, um, one is important to make sure that the company that you are, um, looking to work with, uh, has a, a HIPAA compliance trick policy, right? That their employees are certified, um, Because yes, you will be sharing that information with them and they are an extension to your practice, right?

If you find the right group, the right team to work with, they should be an extension to your practice. They will not be there face to face. But when a patient calls, he or she should not feel like they're calling a third party company. But instead they should be calling your place of business and they have that sense, that energy, right?

[00:20:00] And the communication system flows through that when they walk in through your practice. They feel like they've been there the whole time and speaking to someone there the whole time.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. I love it. Um, how about after hours, you guys do, um, after hours, weekends, if people wanted to do that, because that was another thing that I've heard from multiple kind of sources and scheduling suits.

One of those again, is that, um, that's a missed opportunity for a lot of people, um, as far as the night calls, the weekend calls early, early morning calls, you guys cover some of those.

Pablo Blanco: We, we absolutely do. I would say the lone wolf does not fit into that category or at least by, by the numbers, right? Uh, someone that's starting out, um, or isn't quite there yet, um, doesn't really benefit much from it, but, but, uh, an established practice with enough traffic certainly has that, that, that [00:21:00] opportunity during those, those late hours or weekends.

Anywhere it may make sense

Dr. Kevin Christie: financially.

Pablo Blanco: Absolutely. Yes. Um, and, and, and historically, an after hours, uh, agent will, will be a little more expensive than, than the traditional dedicated or shared attendant. Right. Yeah. There's a

Dr. Kevin Christie: premium on

Pablo Blanco: that for sure. Right. There is, there is. So you want to make sure that, that you've, if you've leveled up and you've grown right over the years and without having to You know, revamp or or reignite or invest more into paid advertising.

Um, there's definitely a huge benefit to opening up the doors to those missed opportunities, those calls and certainly reaching back and doing those callbacks. I mean, if you have 3000 to 5000 patients or a patient database. You could have someone working for you remotely virtually [00:22:00] full time, bringing back those opportunities and picking up the phone during those off hours and weekends.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. That makes sense. And then I just want to, you know, you and I were kind of chatting, you mentioned you guys have like a, kind of a seven part integration to getting people up, uh, kind of onboarded, I guess, in, in streamlining these tasks and improving the patient interaction. What does that look like?

Sure. So

Pablo Blanco: it's pretty straightforward. First thing, like I would ask you is to tell us what your needs are, right? It really all starts there. Uh, there needs to be a, a, a need. Right and for for us to match and pair, um, based on those staffing needs, whether it be billing insurance verification. I mean, we have surgical centers.

They do pre op and post op. Right? Get a little more, uh. In in in depth with with a patient management, uh, from initial consult all the way that you have surgery to having [00:23:00] the surgery and then post stop. Right? What you need to do. And there's that follow up. Um, or if it's just managing patients that are athletes.

Right? And then they, they. Historically, just get injured on on an annual basis, or they want to prevent injury. So it's managing that. Um, so we pair you with that virtual, uh, agent or your virtual medical assistant. Um, uh, that assistant goes through that onboarding phase. During the onboarding phase, they integrate with your phone system, your EMR, your any management software that you have, or any software tools that you currently utilize in your practice.

So, it's not set in stone that we do A, B, and C. The agent itself will learn your system, right? And your, your method. So, like I said before, when they're speaking to a potential, uh, patient or an existing patient, they're not calling a third party system, right? They're, they're calling your practice. [00:24:00] And it should feel that way.

Um, there's usually training, right? Your, your EMR, how, you know, Dr. Chrissy likes knows to be taken on a patient chart when they call if there's a cancellation, et cetera. All of that is learned throughout. Historically, it takes anywhere between 4 to 5 weeks. And call that the training right for the assistant.

Um, and after those 30 days, um, that agent is operating independently. All right. Um, and that just leaves to you being alleviated from all all admin headaches and and the stress. Right? Uh, but essentially, that is the timeline is it's 1 month training onboarding, learning your ways, your system, your software, your tools, right?

Etcetera to have that person up and running as soon as possible.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. That makes a lot of sense to me. Is there, is there anything I didn't ask you that you think a chiropractor should know about having kind of this virtual front desk, um, option? [00:25:00]

Pablo Blanco: Right. Um, you know that, thank you for asking that. I get asked a lot when, when I speak to potential clients, uh, On where we are located, what the cost is, um, why our agents are located where they are, et cetera.

Uh, so I'll give you a little information on that, right? Avonmed has, um, their, their BPO, our BPO in Guatemala, in Antigua, Guatemala, which is Central America. We're in mountain time. Um, uh, two reasons why we are located in Guatemala. First and foremost, United Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield. Aetna, Humana, all have their call centers here in Guatemala.

So when you're calling your, your United healthcare plan, and you press 1 or 2 speak Spanish or English, 99 percent of the time someone in Guatemala is going to be picking up that call. Right? So we have a lot of resources here with educated. Uh, I call it educated talent. Right? And the healthcare space [00:26:00] for the US.

So we're able to source, um, highly trained and educated people in our health care space through our health care system. Um number two We want to make sure that whether you're in california or in new york or in florida that the time difference isn't Isn't off, right? Even though you could have someone working a graveyard shift in India or in the Philippines It's not the same as when someone is, you know, two hours away from Miami, for example So so those those are the most common ones But then you know Having a depending on the area of being in South Florida where we are, right?

Um, having someone bilingual is almost a must a requirement. Uh, so, you know, servicing that. Um, and then more importantly, it's just having the right tools. I mean, if you if you and in this case, and I haven't met, right? We employ every agent. With the right [00:27:00] technology, the right tools, the right access so they can have a seamless transaction between patient and provider right from A and B.

Um, we're able to fill that.

Dr. Kevin Christie: And I, 1 of the things I'll, I'll address, cause I'm sure some people are thinking about it. I've had a few phone calls with some of your team members and, uh, they are bilingual, but their English is, you know, it's, it's, it's very good. It's not like it's, uh, right. So there's,

Pablo Blanco: there's a, a, a level, right?

Of, of proficiency and skills that you have in, in the industry, they say 90 percent English proficient. Uh. But we strive and aim for a 95 percent English proficiency. In fact, uh, the, I would say half the staff right now are expats living in Guatemala, uh, doing front desk work, right? Virtual front desk work, uh, the other half just come with, like I said, in the past, it's just great background [00:28:00] knowledge.

You know, I'm very good English proficient and they understand that our industry, if we're talking about ICD 10 codes and CPT codes and preauthorizations, they speak the lingo better than I don't. I've been in the industry for almost two decades. So, um, yeah, we, we definitely try to put the best out there for you.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. I love it. How can they find out more?

Pablo Blanco: Just visit us at avidmed. com, uh, under tab virtual agent or front desk. And you'll see all the information from, uh, how it works all the way down to pricing.

Dr. Kevin Christie: Perfect. I love it. Uh, thank you for your time today. I'm sure this won't be the last time I have you on, but this was definitely a fresh topic and something that, uh, a lot of chiropractors need to consider.

Well, thank

you

Pablo Blanco: for the time as well, Kevin. And it's always my pleasure to be here on your podcast.