Toolbox: Hand Therapy Clinic

Here's your "startup clinic in a box"! I am often asked about what services I use for various aspects of Hands for Living, my hand therapy clinic in Lynnwood, WA. I am picky, and cost-sensitive, so these things were vetted very carefully... I'll list them here, with some brief thoughts on why they work for us (right now). These things evolve over time as our needs change, but here's what's working as of today. And I noted a couple things I would love suggestions on if you have a great solution! Anything else you want to know about?

If this is helpful to you, will you share it with your practice owner friends or people who are thinking about starting a clinic?

Office Management

Phone & Fax: Comcast Business for Internet and phone and RingCentral SRFax for fax.

Password Manager: LastPass or EnPass. If you don't have one, you need one.

Scheduling: Schedulicity.  I use Acuity now for my clinic and coaching practice, and prefer it over Schedulicity, particularly for clients to schedule online. I used a Google calendar when I started.

Practice Management: Office Ally and its associated Practice Mate - low cost, no frills, works. Was free initially, now we pay fees due to the type of carriers we bill. We reviewed a couple other options recently, but decided to stay. Practice Mate has a scheduling system, but it does not allow patients to schedule visits online independently.

Billing: We do our own billing in house using Office Ally/Practice Mate. When I started, I outsourced this and paid a flat percentage of collections. I would advise caution with this option; it can work well, but choose your biller carefully. My office manager is an absolute rock star, and I am grateful every day for her expertise. We are willing to do billing for other practices - please let me know if you are interested.

Marketing and Communications

Website: Built on Showit, a Wordpress theme/engine for creatives, created and hosted by Practice Promotions.

For the first 7 years, I did my own website and used Weebly.

This JK website is through Kajabi, and I've done it myself and like it for the ability to host coaching/teaching materials online, as well as linking with ActiveCampaign well for email management beyond Kajabi's capabilities.

Newsletter: Practice Promotions (print and online)

Medical Records: We use a custom Word template for evaluations, progress notes, and discharges, producing a clean and tidy report for distribution, and handwrite our daily notes. Notable mentions from friends for EMR systems include PracticePerfect and Hello Note.

**Please let me know if you LOVE your EMR, or find it a time saver!!! Would love an amazing hand therapy solution.

Telehealth Portal: Zoom.  I have also used Doxy.me in the past.

Email: Google Workspace - need I say more? Attempts to use Microsoft products made me crazy.

File Storage: Google Drive - Ditto - we had no end of problems with MS OneDrive.

Form Creator (HIPAA compliant): Jotform - registration information can be submitted online

Employee Management

Time clock: Webtimeclock - inexpensive, simple, does the job. WhenIWork looks intriguing. And free.

Payroll: OnPay - Integrates with time clock and 401k systems. Started with SurePayroll, but vastly prefer OnPay. Totally worth money to have payroll professionally processed. Errors in this area are easy, and penalties can be stiff. Gusto was a close second.

401k: Guideline - exceptionally low fees to employer and no fees to employee. Access to Vanguard funds, very simple and modern website and processes.

Health insurance: Regence through Costco program

Financial Products

Banking (Checking/basic savings): US Bank and Chase. Probably prefer Chase if we didn't start with US Bank. Mostly about ease of website use. US Bank has been very good about low to no fees, as are some credit unions.

Credit Cards: Chase Chase and Chase. I enjoy the travel rewards cards, particularly the Ink Family for Ultimate Rewards points. Great cards. 

Credit Card processing: Elavon through Costco Program. CC processing is a ridiculous quagmire of fees and pricing structures. It's nearly impossible to compare, but I did (I love spreadsheets!!). It's probably worth another look as it's been a long time, and I haven't repeated the research recently. When I started, I used Square and Paypal as I didn't know how much I would process and the flat fee structure was appealing. We also now send patient invoices through Quickbooks, which are processed through Stripe.

**If you've done this research recently and want to share, please let me know!!