Montana Spine & Joint Rehab sees 24% revenue growth and $60k annual labor savings by switching to Prompt

Montana Spine & Joint Rehab is a four-provider practice located in Helena, Montana that has been using Prompt since the beginning of 2021. Prior to switching to Prompt, they were using an EMR with a third-party billing provider and software system that was causing significant operational headaches and challenges for their business. The company’s owner Lisa Richards and Office Manager/RCM Director Chelsey Pullin joined us to talk about their journey on Prompt, focusing on a few key topics: 

• Why they began to search for a new EMR/PM and how they found Prompt
• Their experience onboarding to Prompt and with Prompt’s CS team
• Their journey to bring billing in-house with Prompt
• The growth in their business since switching to Prompt
• Why business owners should consider using Prompt 

Since switching to Prompt, Montana Spine & Joint Rehab has achieved some awesome results, including: 

• A 24.4% growth in overall revenue with the same overall provider count
• Brought billing in-house without having to hire any additional employees, saving 5%+ of their revenue as an expense to their third-party RCM company
• Generated a $60,000 per year labor savings by avoiding having to hire an additional front desk employee, which they were seeking to hire prior to switching to Prompt
• Perform all of their RCM functions in just 1-2 hours per day
• Decreased their Days in A/R and improved overall revenue per visit despite declining reimbursement rates nationwide
• Improved their Google business listing to get from the 5th page to the 1st page
• Transitioned over 85% of their patients to be completing their paperwork and intake digitally

What drove them to switch EMRs

Back in 2020, Lisa took ownership of the business and immediately recognized their software systems were causing a drag on their business. “We were very unhappy with the billing portion of the EMR on our prior system, which was a third-party platform and company,” Lisa said. “It was extremely hard to figure out what was going on and how our business was actually doing on a day-to-day basis.”

In speaking with Chelsey, there were many frustrations with the prior system as well. “It was very difficult to understand what was going on with the billing,” she said. “The customer service at the prior company was horrible and many times they would not even answer our inquiries. This was one of the biggest drivers of the change as well.”

“The customer service at the prior company was horrible and many times they would not even answer our inquiries. This was one of the biggest drivers of the change as well.”

With this in mind, Lisa and Chelsey began searching for a new EMR system, with the goal of finding a truly all-in-one platform with more robust reporting, better customer service, and a better billing platform, ultimately causing them to pick Prompt. 

Onboarding with Prompt and managing the transition

During onboarding, Lisa and Chelsey and the team were provided with three dedicated account managers, one of whom was a former therapist that oversaw all their clinical and admin training, another of whom was a former medical biller who oversaw their billing training, and a dedicated EDI specialist who helped manage their clearinghouse transition, to ensure it was seamless and easy. 

“Our onboarding experience was awesome,” Lisa said. “The transition was overall fantastic and the training videos in Prompt University were extremely great. It was also helpful to have someone there to hold your hand and help you through the journey.”

The onboarding was also very easy for their clinical team, who was up and running within a couple of weeks and documenting faster than they were previously. 

Overall, their customer support experience with Prompt has been fantastic. 

“The knowledge base is so robust and can answer almost all of my questions,” Lisa said. “And any time I have a question the knowledge base can’t answer, the team is quick to get me a response and resolve my issues.”

Another thing Lisa and Chelsey love about Prompt is their ability to implement and follow through on feature requests. 

“We have submitted so many feature requests that actually get implemented, which never happened at our prior EMR,” Chelsey said. “We really love how Prompt is constantly updating and improving the platform and how they actually listen to our ideas and put them into action.”

Taking billing in-house with Prompt and Enhanced Therapy Solutions

Prior to switching to Prompt, Chelsey had never done any medical billing, but by working with Prompt along with Prompt’s partner Enhanced Therapy Solutions, she was easily able to learn billing and bring it in-house, saving a ton of time and leading to better overall results. 

“After a few months on Prompt, we concluded that we could definitely bring billing in-house,” Lisa said. “All of the different resources Prompt has in their knowledge base, how easy the software is to use, and getting to work with Enhanced Therapy Solutions made it a no-brainer.”

Matt and the ETS team spent 6 weeks teaching Chelsey the best practices of how to use the Prompt system, and within no time she was up and running. 

“I had no billing experience, no classes, and no formal certifications, and I was able to bring our billing in-house and help us increase revenue because of Prompt and ETS,” Chelsey said. “We were really fed up with the old billing company and it was a massive game changer for our company to bring it in-house.”

“I had no billing experience, no classes, and no formal certifications, and I was able to bring our billing in-house and help us increase revenue because of Prompt and ETS,” Chelsey said.

Since bringing billing in-house, the company has seen their revenue grow by 24.4% in less than 2 years, which the team believes is largely attributable to better software and being able to track everything in a more streamlined way. 

“As an owner, the reports and analytics section with Prompt has made a world of difference,” Lisa said. “We now have the ability to track and manage our employees better and actually allow them to self-manage themselves because of how seamless and easy the dashboards are to use. In our old EMR, the analytics module was a $500/month add-on and it did not contain most of what Prompt provides for free.” 

The ease of Prompt’s billing software and the automation and robustness of the admin tools has allowed Chelsey to operate as the company’s RCM director AND sole admin. 

“Without the ease of the software, we would need at least one more admin/biller because Chelsey would not be able to manage the entire operation on any other software platform,” Lisa said. 

For Chelsey, the ease of the billing platform has led to a huge decrease in A/R and also a better experience for their patients. 

“Right now I am able to do all of my billing work in just 1-2 hours per day,” Chelsey said. “The digital patient statements and online bill pay is loved by our patients and allow us to get paid by our patients within hours of sending out a batch of statements.” 

Prior to leveraging this feature, it often took over 3 months to get paid for their Patient A/R. 

“Before having the online bill pay and digital statements, on our old software we would have a huge volume of Patient A/R over 90 days,” Lisa said. “This feature has been a massive game changer for us, even with our elderly patient population.”

Leveraging Prompt’s automation to increase their Google business ranking and improve efficiency

When Lisa took over the business, the clinic had a huge problem as they were listed on the 5th page of Google when performing a local search for physical therapy. This caused very little organic patient traffic and an over-reliance on other means of generating new patient volume. 

Since switching to Prompt, they have been leveraging Prompt’s automated Google review platform, which has led to a dramatic increase in reviews and by proxy, a huge uplift in their Google Search rank. 

“Within the first week of turning on the automation, we got over 20 Google reviews after having gone the previous year getting less than 10,” Lisa said. “Overall, our SEO placement has skyrocketed since turning this feature on.”

What has this meant for getting new patients in the door? Chelsey has noticed a large uptick in organic new patient volume. 

“In the past few months, we have seen a huge increase in organic patient flow that finds us through our website or directly through Google,” Chelsey said. 

Another area that has generated massive efficiency gains for the clinic is Prompt’s digital intake platform, which comes as part of the standard offering. 

“Prior to Prompt, our old EMR had an intake system that was an add-on and did not feed into the notes and was hard for patients to use,” Chelsey said. “The Prompt intake is extremely customizable and our patients love it. We have an elderly patient population but 85% or more of our patients are completing the digital intake online. This saves me a ton of time and burden and makes the job as an admin much easier. 

From the clinical side, the Prompt intake is a huge timesaver as well. 

“The intake automatically populates into our evaluation note and that makes the process much easier for our PTs,” Lisa said. “Now we can just review the information with the patient and focus on actually evaluating and treating them, rather than having to transcribe a bunch of paper forms into the note.”

Why practice owners should consider Prompt

“As a practice owner, I am overall much happier since switching to Prompt,” Lisa said. “We are so much more confident in our data now and we are making more money, which allows us to pay our employees more as well. Having all the metrics at the tip of our finger has been a life changer. I don’t know where we would be with the old system.”

Since switching to Prompt, the business has transformed. 

“With Prompt, we are growing, profitable, able to give raises, and have the extra funds to use new marketing strategies and fuel further growth even while the industry as a whole is facing so many headwinds,” she continued. 

“As an admin manager and a biller, I am absolutely drinking the Prompt Kool-Aid,” she said. “I love how easy the scheduling is and managing authorizations is an absolute breeze. Everything is so simple and allows our PTs to also fully understand and manage their own caseload.”

On the billing side, Chelsey is also a raving fan. 

“The Billing module is extremely easy to use and I am able to get everything done within an hour most days,” she said. “Things would not be the same without Prompt.”