Video Transcription
Stephen Franson: Hello, Remarkables. This is Dr. Stephen Franson from the Remarkable Practice. I’m sitting here with the man, the myth, the legend. Miles Bodzin. Say hi, Miles.
Miles Bodzin: Hello, everybody.
Stephen Franson: You guys probably recognize this guys from Cash Practice. Miles, believe it or not, not everybody in chiropractic yet knows what you’re up to. Why don’t you talk to us a little bit about what’s going on here in Mexico.
Miles Bodzin: Oh. Here going on in Mexico? Well, I happen to be here with you guys. Billy DeMoss and the whole DeMoss family had invited me to come down with you and several others, and we’re down here surfing for the week, and enjoying ourselves.
You can see I got a little color on my skin here and a little beard on my face. Enjoying ourselves, bonding, and talking the tick.
Stephen Franson: We actually renamed the surf break or at least the point after Miles Point. You were taking some gas out there yesterday, by the way.
Miles Bodzin: Yeah, yeah. I’ve always had a tendency of sitting on the outside of surf. I don’t like being in the crowd, so I tend to be as far out as possible.
Stephen Franson: It was very entertaining to the rest of us sitting to the side watching you.
Miles Bodzin: I’m sure it was. I’m sure it was.
Stephen Franson: You took some heat out there.
Miles Bodzin: I did take some heat, but without-
Stephen Franson: [inaudible].
Miles Bodzin: … without risk there is no reward. Right?
Stephen Franson: That’s right, that’s right.
Miles Bodzin: Without risk there’s no reward.
Stephen Franson: Well, yeah. We’re having a great time down here in Mexico, its been fantastic. We’ve not just been playing and having fun, but its mainly been fun.
We had been talking business and I’m just really intrigued with what you’re doing with Cash Practice.
Miles Bodzin: As I spill beer on myself.
Stephen Franson: This is usually the coffee break, but tonight it’s the beer break.
Miles Bodzin: Beer break.
Stephen Franson: Because, we’re in Mexico and as we determine the first hour we were here, this ain’t [inaudible].
Miles Bodzin: No. It’s not [inaudible]. Different vibe.
Stephen Franson: I admit I didn’t know … I really didn’t know how deep that Cash Practice ran. I want you to unpack it for us.
Miles Bodzin: Sure.
Stephen Franson: You’re talking to my people. This is the chiropractic profession out there and from what you’ve told me, they need you.
Miles Bodzin: Well, I appreciate it.
Stephen Franson: I didn’t know they needed you, but they need you.
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. Well, I somewhere your stuff probably-
Stephen Franson: Do you here the Mexican dogs barking in the background?
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. That’s awesome.
Stephen Franson: It’s perfect.
Miles Bodzin: You know, I saw-
Stephen Franson: Just so you know, we’re … Those are Mexican dogs barking in the background.
Miles Bodzin: They are. For sure. We’ve been getting to hear them every night.
I was introduced to you … Actually, it was when I first got invited to this trip is when Billy mentioned your name to me. I’m like, “Oh. Let me check out Steve and learn about you.” And then, I learned about your website and I listened to some of your …
I’m like, “Man, there’s a real resonance here between the stuff that you teach.” You’re all about retention and … Anyway, long story short I was like, “Oh. We gotta connect.”
And so, you’re asking me about Cash Practice and stuff. I always say that what our business is all about, what Cash Practice is all about is really giving doctors the systems and tools they need to apply in their practice that have better retention, better conversion in their practice.
Ultimately when we talk about being a cash based practice or a cash practice, what we’re really saying I you’re building a practice with extraordinarily high retention. Being cash is just required in order to do that.
You can’t be a high retention practice-
Stephen Franson: Because insurance is a source of interference to retention.
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. It’s an interference to retention, as well as it just gets in the way.
Stephen Franson: Exactly.
Miles Bodzin: It gets in the way-
Stephen Franson: Yes. They don’t coexist.
Miles Bodzin: Right. If you want to … You know this already and the listeners I’m sure know this. Is that if you want to have patients who stay with you for a lifetime, and they’re part of your maintenance, and your wellness care, and they’re with you for many, many years … Which is what I’ve always been about, you end up having a cash based practice.
All of the systems and everything that we provide in our company happens to be through software and when the doctors apply it the ultimate aim is to give them nuts and bolts procedures, software wise for example in order to have a high retention based practice.
Stephen Franson: All right. Everybody talks really top level on all this stuff. Can I go deeper with you on this?
Miles Bodzin: Sure. Absolutely. I love going into the deepness.
Stephen Franson: All right. I don’t want to reveal in propitiatory secrets or anything, but we went through kind of this four step process that you like to take your clients through. Can you unpack that for us a little bit, because in the Remarkable Practice we’re very practical and tactical.
I want people to walk away after every interaction, knowing how to do something better or knowing how to do something that they didn’t know how to do before.
Miles Bodzin: Excellent.
Stephen Franson: Can you walk us through just that one, two, three, four-
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. Absolutely. There’s this four step process that we refer to in Cash Practice and they’re all based upon … We have four systems that address these four steps.
Step one is we’ve identified and I’m sure others have recognized and you’ve in our-
Stephen Franson: I’m gonna jump in and interrupt you as we go.
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. Absolutely, because I know you’ve recognized this stuff as well. That it’s pertinent that patients know they’re making progress towards a goal. That-
Stephen Franson: Okay. Number one.
Miles Bodzin: Patients need to know they’re making progress towards a goal.
Stephen Franson: So, some type of objective and subjective measurable feedback system?
Miles Bodzin: Absolutely. They need feedback. Absolutely. It’s critical. In fact, I’d go so far to say it’s part of human behavior that people need to know they’re going towards a goal and it’s part of their behavior to know they’re making progress towards that goal.
The failure to provide that feedback to the patient to let them know they’re making goal will tremendously impact … It’s probably one of the biggest reasons patients will leave a chiropractor to go to another chiropractor.
They say, “I don’t know how I was doing.” So, they go see a chiropractic somewhere else.
Stephen Franson: Okay. Let me talk about that a little bit. The feedback is so critical, as you’re saying when it comes to retention. It’s called the measurement effect. The Hawthorne Effect.
Number one, people love to be measured. Human beings love to be measured. It’s shown that we all do better if we know we’re being measure, so number one you have to know you’re being measured.
Number two, you have to know what’s being measured. Number three, you need to know how to influence your outcomes. Number four, you need to know that you’re gonna be getting feedback. Good feedback. Right?
Miles Bodzin: Right.
Stephen Franson: Good feedback is timely, personalized, and relevant. You guys are crushing that.
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. We are and I have to give a good thanks to my good friend Dan Donahue. Dr. Dan Donahue who actually came to me with the idea of this idea called the wellness score, which is the system we built for that.
It’s a feedback mechanism where you can put in all your measurements for palpation findings, or posture, or X-ray findings. There’s probably 50 different parameters you can put in it.
Whether you do lab work or whatever it is you do in your practice and even your own stuff. If you want to customize it you can and it produces a report card, basically. Just liked you got in school. A report card to give you feedback.
That’s the wellness score.
Stephen Franson: Step one.
Miles Bodzin: Step one. Step two is we know that we have to give patients affordable payment options and we’ve identified that if you don’t give people affordable options for their care, that becomes a roadblock to them sometimes starting care and it also can become a roadblock for them staying under care.
I want to emphasize this, because in our profession in the cash based practice world when you look up cash practices in chiropractic the common theme out there is sign people up for a year of care, get them to prepay …
Take them through a process to get people to prepay. That seems to be a model in our … Wouldn’t you agree?
Stephen Franson: Right, right, right. Yes. For sure.
Miles Bodzin: I mean, that’s been the mode of operation. On the backend what we find is, is that those people who prepay and those practices generally have a real problem with resigns. That these people don’t resign as regularly as people in another model.
That model being, people who are under a monthly payment. We find that the retention with those people is much higher, versus those who prepay.
I think it has to do with the fact that when people buy something like care, whether it’s care or a car and they pay for it all in one lump sum they treat it as, “I purchased it. I’m gonna consume it until I’m done with it.”
Stephen Franson: Right.
Miles Bodzin: Versus, “I’ve joined something and now I’m paying a subscription fee or a monthly fee to be part of it.” I’ve joined a movement, I’ve joined something, and I’m now part of that process.
Stephen Franson: Right, right, right.
Miles Bodzin: I know one of the arguments chiropractors make is they’ll say, “Well, I want people to prepay, because it commits people. They feel more committed.”
Stephen Franson: Right.
Miles Bodzin: That’s true. They do feel more committed at the beginning, but what we find is that at the end of the care the people who prepaid aren’t nearly as committed as those who have been paying monthly.
People paying monthly are much more committed.
Stephen Franson: Okay. What I’m hearing here is you’re doing the one, two, punch. Essentially, first establishing value with that first step.
Miles Bodzin: Yes. We’re establishing value. Showing that, “Oh. Your health is a C minus.”
Stephen Franson: Right.
Miles Bodzin: We’re giving them some measurement objectively of where they are.
Stephen Franson: Because this conversation has to start with establishing value. Once you’ve established value you’re creating a mechanism that allows people to … It lowers the barrier for people so that they continue their care and it’s sort of built into the culture and the budget of the home?
Miles Bodzin: Right. Exactly. We want to make that. You said the magic word. The budget. We want to make our monthly fee for care … It’s not a cheap fee. It’s a fee for whatever plan you’ve come up with.
We want it to become part of their budget and here’s one of the magic things … I’ll share it. This is one of the … I’d say one of the proprietary things that I brought to the profession.
Not that I have a trademark or anything like this on it, but it’s one of the things I believe I’ve been teaching. That is, when we get to the end of the program I much rather say to a patient, “Hey. Last year … ” Instead of saying this, “Hey. Last year you paid us four grand for the program. The new program’s gonna run you 2000 a year.” Or whatever it is.
Some new conversation, new sales process that has to happen. I’d rather say to my patients, “Hey. Great news. You’ve been paying 350 a month. You get to continue care and the payment’s going down to 175.”
Stephen Franson: Right.
Miles Bodzin: I like to deliver good financial news along with the transition to care, versus it’s time to buy again. It works like magic when you do that.
Stephen Franson: And then, the compliment patient education with that is that there’s a compound effect to chiropractic care, so guess what? You’re actually getting more benefit out of your chiropractic care as time goes on, even though it’s getting less expensive.
Miles Bodzin: Absolutely.
Stephen Franson: Awesome. All right. Step one, step two. What’s step three?
Miles Bodzin: Step three is we want to stop reminding people of money. Even though they’re gonna be paying monthly, one of the leading reasons people will reduce care … One of the leading reasons is the thought of money.
It’s not money itself, it’s the repeated thought of money. Anytime people are reminded of money either at your front desk, either by a bill in the mail, a statement, something from Care Credit, or some third party financing.
Anything that reminds them of the money routinely over and over, the more frequent they have that happen the less likely they are to follow through on the back.
Stephen Franson: Right, right.
Miles Bodzin: We see that in other industries. It’s not just chiropractic. You go in the gyms, they automatically do debits. Even your auto insurance now, car-
Stephen Franson: For sure.
Miles Bodzin: Everything. Even Disneyland right now gives you the ability to do an annual pass and pay a monthly fee automatically.
Stephen Franson: Please don’t tell my wife that.
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. That’s the third step. We’ve been doing that for a long time and I guess I should go back in with these steps and mention what our systems are that apply it.
I mentioned the wellness score for the first step. That second step for giving those affordable payment options, we have a tool called the … Or, a module called the cash plan calculator.
Which, is the-
Stephen Franson: Which, is brilliant.
Miles Bodzin: Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s the module that is now … Its been around for 12 some odd years now and doctors use it when we’ve had close to half a million patients put on plans through that system now.
In the third module we’re talking about here, automating payments, is we have a module called the auto debit system that allows you to do all your auto debit processing.
Stephen Franson: Okay. Building automaticity into the payment plan is the key to that?
Miles Bodzin: It’s key, because we want to stop … I only want two financial conversations with all my patients. I want it to be conversation at the day one day two process of, “Here’s your plan, here’s your payment options.”
And then, make a choice of, “Oh. I’ll pay it monthly or down and monthly.” That’s, that conversation that happens then.
Stephen Franson: Right, right.
Miles Bodzin: Then the only other financial conversation I ever want to have is, “Hey, good news. You’re ready for wellness. Your payments going down.” That’s it. Those are the two financial conversations and that new program at that point in time, it’s not another year program for example.
It is, it’s month to month forever. Just let us know if you ever want to change. Before you know it five years goes by, 10 years goes by, and they’re still on that payment program. They haven’t changed it, because you’ve never had to have that conversation again.
Stephen Franson: I love that. Okay. Step one, step two, step three. What’s step four?
Miles Bodzin: Step four is automatic patient education. You just brought up bringing value into the care by educating patients on an ongoing basis. We use what’s referred to as the drip education system.
We started using drip education a long time ago. It’s just one more way of educating and I’ve seen at least in my practice … We call it talking the tick. When you’re constantly educating people.
We want to continuously educate ongoing, versus sticking a fire hose in their face and trying to educate all at once.
Stephen Franson: Right, right.
Miles Bodzin: We talked a little bit about that and that’s kind of the … Our drip education system is an email based patient education system where you plug in a patient’s name and email and the system automatically sends the reports to the emails to educate them.
Stephen Franson: So, you’re leveraging technology to compliment the education that’s happening. [crosstalk], workshops, and progress reports, et cetera.
Miles Bodzin: Right. All of these systems, what’s unique about them is that of course you can go … There’s other email programs out in the market and there’s other payment processing systems out in the market. I even see some people trying to copy our system of doing care plans coming out.
The point being is that it’s because all of our systems and technology work together. It’s one package. You get in there and use it and they all talk with each other-
Stephen Franson: It’s fully integrated.
Miles Bodzin: Right. When you do a payment program you an assign campaigns in emails. It all works together.
Stephen Franson: Right, right. I love that. All right. How do our people get in touch with you? I mean, how do you learn more? Is there a consultation that you do? Is there a website to visit? How-
Miles Bodzin: Of course, of course.
Stephen Franson: How do they learn more?
Miles Bodzin: The best way to learn more is … Well, several ways. I’ll just point out the website is CashPractice.com. Very easy. CashPractice.com. There’s a phone number of course. 877-343-8950 is our phone number.
If you just want to reach out to us you can send an email to support@cashpractice.com. If you send that, that’ll come to our staff, and you just ask whatever you want, and they’ll reply back to it.
What most of the doctors end up wanting to do when they come aboard with us or want to learn more about want to learn about us is we just do a live demo. Just contact us.
You can send that email to … Send over a request to CashPractice.com and one of the staff will reach out to you and schedule a 15/20 minute web demonstration. Show how the system works, answer all your questions.
We find that most doctors who go through a demo, they’re like, “Sign me up. This is a no brainer.” It’s so easy to use. It’s very inexpensive.
Our program is a month to month … Surprise. A month to month fee. You pay automatically every month for as long as you want to use it.
Stephen Franson: Is that on an auto debit?
Miles Bodzin: It’s on an auto debit. Yes it is. Through bank accounts or credit cards. However you want to pay the money.
Let me just be frank. The reason we do it that way, rather than just selling you some software is because across the board … If you ask people … Let me back up for a second.
If you ask clients of ours about our company, one of the first things they’ll say is, “We get the best service we’ve ever gotten from a company software wise or other.”
I believe it’s because we have to keep you happy to keep you our client. We have to not only provide value and great service from our product, but our customer service has to be top-notch. And, we do.
We have all of our team … We have a staff of 20 people. All in-house. Most of our staff is well-trained, been former CA’s, and just this last year I brought my entire company to Cal Jam just to go experience the experience.
They weren’t there working, they weren’t there … We didn’t have a booth or anything. They were just there to experience it, because I want my team when they’re on the phone with the chiropractic office to be [inaudible] up, to be excited, to be knowing what’s going on in the chiropractic so they’re talking the same language and they’re not just talking the software.
Stephen Franson: For sure. Now, I appreciate what you’re doing, because what you’re doing is you’re dropping barriers for families so that they can be under regular chiropractic care for a lifetime.
Anything that makes that happen, I love.
Miles Bodzin: Absolutely.
Stephen Franson: Okay? And then, I also love the fact that you’re coming alongside chiropractors and you’re taking something that’s intimidating like technology and all these moving parts … For most chiropractors, they probably would say, “I don’t know if there’s anything totally compelling or anything novel or new ideas there.”
But, the fact of the matter is you’ve brought it all in a system that is cohesive, it’s comprehensive, and everything works beautifully and seamlessly, and it’s all in one low fee for them.
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. For sure.
Stephen Franson: I sound like a commercial for you-
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. I almost feel like it’s a commercial.
Stephen Franson: I love what you’re doing, so I appreciate that and I think it’s something that needs to be in every chiropractic office.
Miles Bodzin: Appreciate that.
Stephen Franson: Excellent. One more time with the website.
Miles Bodzin: CashPractice.com. Very easy.
Stephen Franson: Awesome. All right. Tomorrow we get some more waves, and then you’ve got to head home?
Miles Bodzin: Yeah. I’m flying back. I’m actually speaking this weekend in California. Got a couple talks to give.
I fly home tomorrow night. Next day, bright and early, speaking in San Diego. My hometown. Thank goodness I don’t have to fly anywhere again. I’ve been flying all over the place.
Stephen Franson: Right on, brother. Its been a real pleasure hanging out with you all week in Mexico.
Miles Bodzin: For sure. Yeah.
Stephen Franson: All right. Miles Bodzin. Cash Practice. Be remarkable.