Streamline Your Acupuncture Practice | Jasmine Software: September 2015

Sunday, September 27, 2015

The New Acupuncture ICD-10 Codes

Did you actually think this day would come? We are now a few short days until the Oct 1, 2015 ICD-10-CM compliance date.

Starting Oct 1st, we, the medical community, have a hard stop and an immediate switch over from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM. Yikes!

As many of you know, ICD is short of International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. What an acronym! ICD-10 is a medical classification list by the World Health Organization (WHO) and is now in the 10th revision.

We are going from 13,000 codes in ICD-9 to 68,000 codes in ICD-10. Double yikes!

One of the main drivers for ICD-10 is the ability to be more granular and specific with the diagnosis and to more clearly convey the conditions being treated.

In addition, with ICD-9, we have run out of the ability to create new codes and so, the ICD-10 definition will allow us to create an expandable number of codes to support future needs.

Many resources exist online to take existing ICD-9 codes and convert them to ICD-10 codes. Google it.

However, there didn't seem to be a list of common acupuncture ICD-10 codes that you can print out and place on the wall.

So, I created one and hopefully you'll find it useful. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, but a starting point and reference. The PDF can be downloaded from the link below.

Download The New Acupuncture ICD-10 Codes

Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear how this blog post helped you.

Minto Tsai
Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!

Sunday, September 20, 2015

How to retarget your acupuncture patients on Facebook

Have you ever been creeped out by seeing an ad on Facebook after browsing from a website?

Ever wonder how they do that?

In marketing, there's a principle that says it takes 7 "touches" before someone will take action on your marketing message.

Seven!!! That's a lot.

And that's why marketing to your acupuncture patients through different channels is so important.

In this blog post, I'm going to talk about retargeting (also known as remarketing) using the Facebook pixel to bring in more acupuncture patients.

What is retargeting?

Retargeting is a form of online marketing where a user is marketed to based on their previous online behavior. In general, about 2% of your website traffic will become customers on the first visit.

Retargeting tries to bring back the other 98% to the website by showing them ads on other websites.

Simply, retargeting converts window-shoppers into customers.

So how do we do Facebook Retargeting?

Click Audiences

First, go to the Facebook Ads Manager and click Audiences under the Tools drop down.

Click Create Custom Audience

Click the Create Audience button and click Custom Audience.

Choose Website Traffic

Configure Audience

Explore the different options for creating the audience. To start out, I recommend starting with the options:

Website Traffic: Anyone who visits your website

In the Last: 180 days

Audience Name: Something descriptive (i.e. "Website Visitors Last 180 Days")

View Pixel Code

Click the gear button on the bottom left corner of the Create Audience dialog and click "View Pixel Code."

Install Pixel Code

Copy and paste the pixel code into the <head> tag of your website.

Click "Create Audience" to finish creating this audience.

Congratulations, you've just created your retargeting audience!

Now, when creating Facebook Ads, you can use this new audience to retarget interested and existing acupuncture patients.

Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear how this blog post helped you.

Minto Tsai

Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!

Sunday, September 13, 2015

The ULTIMATE Acupuncturist's Software Checklist

Recently, I had the honor and pleasure to present to the practice management class at AOMA Graduate School of Integrative Medicine. (I always love talking to wide-eyed students with an abundance of energy and ready to take over the world!)

The practice management class prepares students as they embark on their integrative medicine careers. And, the experts teaching the class explore business plan development, marketing, and tax development with the students.

As part of my presentation, I wanted to give the students some actionable takeaways that would help them get their practice up and running from a software perspective. From having interviewed hundreds of acupuncturists, I have had the good fortune and unique vantage point of seeing the many different types of software being used by practitioners in their businesses.

(And, boy are people using a lot of different software and sometimes stuff so unheard of, I can only imagine, they're using them because the qi is strong! :) )

I think and hope that this software checklist is helpful to both new and more established practices, so I've posted the PDF for download below.

The ULTIMATE Acupuncturist's Software Checklist PDF

Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear how this blog post helped you.

Minto Tsai
Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!

Saturday, September 5, 2015

See Where Your Acupuncture Patients Come From By Using UTM Parameters

"How did you find us?" is one of the most important questions you can ask a new acupuncture patient. If you're not asking this question to everyone, you're really missing out on a great opportunity.

This question tells you a whole bunch about which marketing channels are most effective and where you should be spending your time.

While you can ask this in person, on the online world, you can gather this information using something called UTM parameters.

What are UTM parameters?

UTM parameters are special codes added to your URLs to pass extra information to your analytics software (i.e. Google Analytics).

If you haven't installed Google Analytics, do that now! I'll wait. Here's a blog post to help you. --> The Next Most Important Thing for Your Acupuncture Website

It's also important to note that UTM parameters in no way affect how a visitor sees your website.

Here's an example below, the UTM parameters are in green:

https://authenticacupuncture.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=blog-mens-health

Start with these parameters

While there are 5 UTM parameters at your disposal, if you're starting out, I recommend using a subset of these.

utm_source: used to identify the search engine, social network, or other source.
(i.e. utm_source=facebook)

utm_medium: used to identify the marketing medium (i.e. utm_source=social)

utm_campaign: used to identify a marketing campaign or promotion (i.e. utm_campaign=blog-mens-health)

Google URL Builder

To make things easy for us, Google has created a service called Google URL Builder.

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

Using Google URL Builder

On the Google URL Builder form, the required fields are marked with a star (i.e. "*").

Website URL: The URL of your website where Google Analytics is installed. (** This is important, without Google Analytics, none of this makes sense.)

Campaign Source: Enter the location you will put this URL (i.e. Facebook). This is the utm_source from above.

Campaign Medium: Enter the campaign source type (i.e. Social). This is the utm_medium from above.

Campaign Name: Enter the name of this campaign (i.e. Blog-Mens-Health). This is the utm_campaign from above.

After entering all the form fields, click the Generate URL button.

Now you can copy and paste the URL and use it!

Use the link... Everywhere!

Do you link to your website from your emails? How about newsletters? You can also use them in your Facebook and Twitter posts!

Offline? No problem, use a URL shortner like Bitly and use the link in your business cards and flyers!

And, most importantly, in your Facebook, Google, and Twitter Ads!

Measure all the things

Now you can go into Google Analytics and see which campaigns are most effective and where your patients are engaging with you most.

Imagine what you can do with all this information to help attract more patients!

Questions? Let me know in the comments below. I'd love to hear how this blog post helped you.

Minto Tsai

Founder

P.S. If this helped you, please Like, Share, email... all the social network love you can give!