suffer the same pain and humiliation that you are going to suffer for inap-propriate behaviour, fraud or sexual inappropriateness. 10.) “But they owed me money.” Suing a patient is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. You sue the patient for, i.e. $500 for an outstanding bill, and they send a letter that costs a dollar in postage to the regulatory board accusing you of inappropriate behaviour. The legal fees for your de-fence may just start at $500.00 but more than likely it will end up costing you thousands. Simply write off the debt and be better at collecting your accounts. 11.) “I gave them a paid receipt so they could collect from the in-surance company. Why won’t they pay me?” Because they don’t have to. You gave them a receipt and if you sue them they are likely to produce the receipt. If you testify that the receipt was given for them to collect money from the insurance company, you are likely to end up having bigger prob-lems resulting from a false receipt that resulted in insurance fraud. This goes from bad to worse. 12.) “I was doing them a favour – I didn’t get anything out of it.” See #1. Your participation in inappro-priate conduct will lead to serious consequences. 13.) “It was my receptionist’s fault.” Don’t even go there. The buck stops at your desk. This argument simply confirms that you are not living up to your responsibility. 14.) “It was a computer glitch.” This excuse is about as acceptable as “my dog ate my homework.” As pro-fessionals we are required to be able to provide documents when requested. Backup, backup, backup. It is really hard to keep a straight face when at-tempting to use this excuse for not having patient or financial records. 15.) “But it wasn’t my clinic.” It simply doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mat-ter who owns the clinic, who owns the files, who does the billings, who does the collecting of accounts. See #14 – the responsibility is that of the practi-tioner – no ands, ifs or buts. 16.) “Why are they persecuting me?” They are not persecuting they are prosecuting. A regulatory board has statutory obligations and deal with complaints when submitted by a patient. There are other reasons, alibis or excuses for what amount to potential disasters in a professional practice. The best advice is to obtain advice as soon as a potential problem might arise. When all is said and done, a reasonable practitioner acting reason-ably is the best defence to a problem ever occurring in a professional practice. INSPIRE Y OUR LAS TING PURPOSE LIFE Vision is a two-day shot of high-energy, high-impact inspirational and educational moments designed to bring current and future chiropractic leaders of all perspectives together to connect and re-charge. TWO-DAY SEMINAR Don’t expect academic lectures or practicum-like seminars. This is a series of micro-presentations delivered by visionaries who have lived it, are living it and will continue to live it. It’s a “heart” seminar with great practice building ideas. Join us MARCH 31 -APRIL 1 for the time of your LIFE. March 31 -April 1, 2017 Montreal, Quebec Register today at LIFEVisionSeminar.com. For a full list of receptions, gatherings and our exciting itinerary of inspirational messages, visit our website at LIFEVisionSeminar.com. QUESTIONS? CALL (678) 331-4401 OR EMAIL [email protected] REGISTER TODAY AT LIFEVisionSeminar.com www.canadianchiropractor.ca October 2016 Canadian Chiropractor 23
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