Orthotic Practice Management, Part 3 The importance of interprofessional communication and report generation feature Proper record keeping includes documenting all of the important findings of the foot and gait examination and the patient’s history as well as the specifics of the orthotic design. This can be done during the exam with a simple form, which also serves to guide the examination. Dr. Martin Dziak is a chiroprac-tor and certified pedorthist. He is the creator of ORTHOTRACK.ca, a customizable orthotic prac-tice management software. For answers to questions and infor-mation, visit ORTHOTRACK.ca, e-mail [email protected], or call 519-954-6100 or 1-888-337-7362. T he previous articles focused on the importance of a follow-up program after dis-pensing custom orthotics and the importance of proper record keeping. These articles provided information to help you become better practitioners, save time and create healthy patient relationships that last a lifetime. This article is about the importance of interprofessional communication and report generation in building professional physician relationships, as well as the importance of accurate and complete forms for insurance companies that include all up-to-date requests they require. These relationships will serve to increase the reputation of your practice and increase your referral base. More insurance companies are now requiring referrals from medical doctors or podia-trists in order for a claim for custom orthotics to be reimbursed. The great majority of these referrals will be from a family physician. Once given a prescription for orthotics, patients have, at this time, a variety of professionals they can choose to dispense their orthotics: chiropractors, physiotherapists certified pedorthists, chiropodist and podiatrists. Martin Dziak, DC, CPed(C) CLINICAL NOTE It has recently come to my attention that Blue Cross has eliminated chiropractors from the list of professionals who are recognized to dispense orthotics – and that other bodies are not far away from completely removing, from DCs, the ability to dispense orthotics, period. If the chiropractic profession wishes to protect its current ability to dispense or-thotics, individual DCs and our association should become active in advocating for this. If we do loose the ability to dispense, the option to maintain this service in your clinic can be performed by hiring a Certified Pedorthist to dispense the orthotics for you – this 18 • CANADIAN CHIROPRACTOR | JUNE 2013 www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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