Back To Chiropractic Continuing Education Seminars Ethics & Law

Back To Chiropractic Continuing Education Seminars

Ethics & Law: SOAP Notes ~ 2 Hours

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Marcus Strutz, DC

Back To Chiropractic CE Seminars

Ethics & Law –

Stop Wasting Time Writing Daily SOAP Notes – 2 Hours

Presented by Steven C Eggleston, DC, Esq.

Stop Wasting Time Writing Daily SOAP Notes

In this class I answer the question, “How can I save time on each patient visit with SOAP

notes?” It turns out that daily SOAP notes are NOT required on every visit by the California

Board of Chiropractic Examiners. There are no state or federal laws that require them on

each and every visit either (except MediCare patients.) Medical Doctors don’t do them

“daily” because they only see the patient once a month and the Physical Therapist does the

“daily” treatment in between those M.D. examinations. As it turns out, SOAP notes only need to

be done during examinations and the California State Board only requires monthly examinations.

It is important that Chiropractors keeps excellent SOAP notes during the monthly examination

because, if you do that, you can refer to those SOAP notes in the daily notes and they are

automatically “incorporated by reference” into your daily notes as if you had copied and

pasted them in every time.

Chiropractors have gotten confused because we wear both the doctor hat AND the treatment

deliverer hat. Back in the 1980s, some Chiropractors went around trying to get us to keep better

patient records. They taught us to do SOAP notes just like the MDs do. What they failed to

grasp (and what has cost our profession millions of wasted hours) is that MDs only do SOAP

notes once a month. We started doing them 12 times a month. Back in the 1980s, the health

insurance companies were paying us for doing an exam each time and we billed and were paid

for a 99211, 99212, or 99213 re-examcode on every visit in addition to the 98940, 98941 or

98942 adjustment code.

In the 1990s, health insurance companies stopped paying Chiropractors for the 99211, 99212 and

99213 codes (technically called "Evaluation & Management” or E & M codes.) We just kept on

keeping daily SOAP notes even though we were not being paid for them. It is absolutely NOT

required by the California Board of Chiropractic Examiners (check with your state’s rules &

regulations) that Chiropractors keep daily SOAP notes.

California Board of Chiropractic Examiners Rules & Regulations Section 312 (Illegal Practice)

states in 312(c)(2), “The doctor shall initially examine and prepare a written treatment

program for a patient prior to the providing of physical therapy treatment by (any) unlicensed

individual.” Your first ethical consideration is that you absolutely MUST have a written Treatment

Plan in the patient’s file that YOU have personally filled out BEFORE any of your assistants or

massage therapists can perform any therapy whatsoever. For example, turning on the spinalator is

illegal if your assistant does this BEFORE you have placed a written Treatment Plan in the patient’s

chart. This makes sense since the written treatment plan is your specific instructions to your

unlicensed assistants as to exactly what you want them to do for the patient on each and every patient

visit.

Likewise Section 312(c)(3) states, “The doctor shall provide periodic reevaluation of the

treatment program and of the individual's performance in relation to the patient. ‘Periodic

reevaluation’ shall mean at least once every thirty days the patient is under active care.” You are

absolutely required to perform a re-exam on every chiropractic patient in the state of California

(check your state’s rules) at least every 30 days. If you do not do this, it is completely illegal for you

to allow any chiropractic assistant or massage therapist to do any therapy on your patients. Since

symptoms wax and wane from day to day, recording the patients full SOAP notes three to five days a

week can give you a false understanding of whether the patient is actually improving under your

care. When you only do SOAP notes once a month during the monthly progress exam, you

really get a better understanding of your patient’s response to treatment.

Since you are required to have a written Treatment Plan AND do a re-exam every 30 days under

California Board Rules (check your state’s rules), I suggest we use this to our advantage and do our

SOAP notes every 30 days. That means you will fill out a written Treatment Plan (the “P” in SOAP)

once a month, a written Diagnosis form (the “A” in Soap) and in order to know what to diagnose and

how to treat it, have the patient fill out a Symptoms Form (the “S” in SOAP) once a month and you

examine (the “O” in SOAP) those symptoms. These 4 forms, Symptoms, Examination, Diagnosis

and Treatment Plan are all 4 elements in the acronym SOAP and filling them out once a month keeps

you in compliance with California’s Board Rules & Regulations. (Check your state’s rules.)

You may ask, “But what about all the treatments in between the monthly examination when I fill out

the SOAP notes? Don’t I have to write something down on those visits?” Yes, you do. In

California, you are required to write the date of each and every patient visit. That’s all (in

California at least.)

Now you are wondering, “Is this too good to be true?” I have researched this carefully and it is

absolutely true BUT ONLY if you comply with the monthly SOAP note requirement. You cannot

skip over the monthly reevaluation and then not do any SOAP notes on treatment days. Then you

would have no records at all. You must keep good records and you can do so monthly just like the

MDs do. Then you only have to write the date the patient came in and whether or not you followed

your written Treatment Plan. For example:

May 5, 2017 – I followed the SOAP notes from my most recent reevaluation.

May 7, 2017 – I followed the SOAP notes from my most recent reevaluation except that massage

was not done today.

May 9, 2017 – I followed the SOAP notes from my most recent reevaluation.

May 13, 2017, I followed the SOAP notes from my most recent reevaluation. In addition, today the

patient complained of right great toe pain. He stubbed it on the leg of a table. I observed swelling

and discoloration. Right great toe sprain. I applied ice, ultrasound under water, and advised the

patient to rest it for 3 weeks.

May 15, 2017 – I followed the SOAP notes from my most recent reevaluation.

May 16, 2017 - I followed the SOAP notes from my most recent reevaluation.

May 18, 2017 - I followed the SOAP notes from my most recent reevaluation.

These examples show all you need to write on your daily chart notes (you must initial and/or

sign it either by handwriting or electronically each date) and also shows how you write your

daily notes if you deviate from your written Treatment Plain on file. This satisfies all

California Board Rules but (again, I emphasize) only if you have completed the Symptoms,

Exam, Diagnosis and Treatment Plan forms every month while the patient is under active care.

Check your state’s rules.

Here is how I came up with this idea. I practiced Chiropractic for 15 years and then went to law

school (while continuing to maintain my Chiropractic practice.) During law school, I took a

class on Wills and Trusts in law school. I learned during this class how doctors (especially

chiropractors) can avoid writing SOAP notes in general and save hours every week in

unnecessary writing or typing.

The doctrine of Incorporation by Reference is important in Probate law because a person can

modify his or her will quickly, easily and as many times as she wants using this legal doctrine.

Modifying a will can be expensive and time-consuming and require that the will be re-typed and

witnessed by two people. However, this doctrine of Incorporation by Reference is wonderfully

helpful in this scenario and with chiropractic SOAP notes as well.

A person with a will may place a statement into the will such as, “Please distribute the contents

of my safe deposit box at Wells Fargo Bank according to the note in the safe deposit box after I

die.” Without making any change to the actual will, that person can go to Wells Fargo Bank as

often as she likes and put items into the box or remove items from the box. All she has to do is

cross out whatever she removed and write in what she added to the box and who gets it after she

dies.

For example, suppose there is a Babe Ruth rookie baseball card in the safe deposit box and a

note that reads, “Babe Ruth card to nephew Charles.” If she died while that note was in the box,

her will would give the Babe Ruth rookie card to her nephew Charles. Suppose, however, that

she gets mad at Charles one day and goes to the bank, crosses out “Charles” and writes in

“David.” If she dies the next day then her will (which wasn’t physically re-written) will give the

Babe Ruth rookie card to David. She changed her will without actually re-writing it.

Chiropractors can to the same thing with SOAP notes as you are about to learn and not have to

re-write all those notes all the time by simply using the same legal doctrine of Incorporation by

Reference used by this woman who changed her with without re-writing it at all.

Suppose a week later she has somebody offer her $1,000 for the Babe Ruth rookie card. She

goes to Wells Fargo, gets the baseball card out of the safe deposit box, sells it and goes on a

Caribbean cruise with the money. She puts a line through the note in the safe deposit box that

states, “Babe Ruth card to nephew David.” Then she falls overboard somewhere in the

Caribbean and her will effectively disinherits David and he doesn’t get the baseball card. She

did all that without re-writing her will.

Suppose she didn’t really fall overboard in the Caribbean but came home safely. She purchased

two gold coins in Grand Caymen that were part of a shipwreck of gold that was discovered,

brought up and salvaged. The coins are worth $25,000 each. She takes them to the safe deposit

box when she gets home, puts them in and writes a note at the bottom of the page, “One gold

shipwreck coin to my daughter Mary and the other to my son Ricardo.” If she dies the next day,

her will gives the coins to Mary and Ricardo. Neither Charles nor David get the baseball card

that was sold to pay for the cruse. David lost his baseball card to pay for the cruise which was

when she bought some very expensive coins for other people. Yes, wills can be changed in this

way in California.

As I listened to my professor explain this doctrine, a light bulb went off in my head and I had

this idea. If the law allows a person to reference (refer to) another document and to incorporate

the contents of that other document into the will, why can’t I refer to my most recent progress

examination notes in my daily SOAP notes and simply not have to re-write all those Symptoms,

Objective signs, Assessment/Diagnoses and Plans for treatment?

I began doing just that and recommend it for your consideration. Here is what needs to be done.

I designed a comprehensive Symptoms form, exam forms for all seven peripheral joints,

Diagnosis form and Treatment plan form. They are simple to use (boxes to check) and thorough

at the same time. They are easily understood by non-doctors so claim adjusters can easily

understand what is wrong with the patient with no need to write a narrative report. A copy of

each of these forms is in the appendix that comes with these class materials.

How Do You Get Paid For Doing Progress Exams?

Once a doctor has these forms, he or she can use them during any examination or re-examination

of the patient. CPT code 99213 is for 15 minutes of the doctor’s time doing consultation,

examination, decision making and coordination of care for an existing patient. Use 99203 for 30

minutes of consultation, examination, decision making and coordination of care for a new

patient. CPT code 99354 is for billing an “extra 30 minutes” when it takes 45 minutes or longer

to do a progress examination for an existing patient or it takes me longer than 60 minutes for a

new patient.

The beauty of knowing these billing codes and using them properly is that the doctor can

perform progress exams whenever needed (at least monthly for California “Active” patients as

mandated by State Board Rules) then then incorporate my (or any equally good) Symptoms,

Exam, Diagnosis and Treatment Plan forms directly into their daily SOAP notes simply by

referencing them. Viola! The doctor no longer has to keep writing everything on every visit.

Doctors know that the symptoms do not change that much from day to day so a once a month

complete Symptoms analysis is what the doctor treats that patient for during a period of 30 days.

All the doctor has to do to incorporate each and every one of the patient’s symptoms into the

daily SOAP notes is refer to the most recent Symptoms form in the daily SOAP notes like this:

“S: See most recent Symptoms form on file.”

Exam findings do not change in one or two days so the doctor can treat the patient for a month

using the same objective findings until the next progress exam. All the doctor has to do to

include all the latest exam results into the daily SOAP notes is reference them in the SOAP notes

like this: “O: See most recent exam results on file.”

The patient’s diagnosis does not change from day to day so the doctor can use the same

diagnosis to treat the patient for 30 days until the next progress exam. All the doctor needs to do

to incorporate each and every one of the patient’s current diagnoses into the daily SOAP notes is

to refer to them in the daily SOAP notes like this: “A: See most recent Diagnosis form on file.”

The patient’s treatment typically does not change from day to day. The doctor decides to do a

month of treatments and does them for 30 days and then evaluates the results of those treatments

at the next progress exam. All the doctor needs to do to incorporate the entire treatment plan into

the daily SOAP notes is to refer to it in the daily SOAP notes like this: “P: See most recent

Treatment Plan on file.”

For the doctors reading these class notes (and weeping for joy right now) the secret to all of this

is to do high quality and thorough progress examinations. A lot of chiropractors do not like

doing progress examination because they do not get paid reasonably for doing them. However,

here is where it gets interesting. Assume that a doctor’s hourly billing rate is $100 (that would

be too low in reality since the doctor has to pay all his employees, electricity, rent and other

business costs out of his or her “hourly rate”.) Using this example of $100, that doctor would

charge $25 for the billing code 99213 (1/4 hour of time face to face with patient doing

consultation, exam, decision making and coordination of care.) If it took the doctor 45 minutes

or more to do the progress exam, he or she would bill code 99354 in addition to the 99213 code

($50) to indicate that it took at least another half hour to complete the progress exam.

Likewise, a doctor would properly bill the code 99203 for thirty minutes of time to consult with,

examine, make all the clinical decisions and coordinate care with other doctors. At the hourly

rate of $100, this doctor would charge $50 for one-half hour of time allotted to that CPT code. If

it took the doctor more than an hour with the new patient to go over the Symptoms form and

discuss it with the patient (consultation), fill out the examination form(s) for the spine and every

injured joint (examine), fill out the Diagnosis and Treatment Plan forms (decision making) and

ordering an MRI (coordination of care) then the doctor should properly bill code 99354 for the

extra 30 minutes it took to do all that work while face to face with the patient. If the hourly rate

for this doctor is $100 per hour then the extra 30 minutes code should be billed at $50.

Each doctor determines his or her own hourly rate depending on the doctor’s experience,

knowledge and factors such as the cost of office space in that neighborhood. These codes can be

applied to the doctor’s hourly rate in any situation. For example, if the doctor’s hourly rate is

$200 per hour then he or she would bill $100 for the first half hour of the new patient exam

(99203) and another $100 for the second half hour of the new patient exam (99354.) Progress

exams would be properly billed as $50 for the fifteen minutes (99213) and $100 for the next

thirty minutes (99354) assuming the progress exam took at least forty-five minutes. I suggest the

doctor or staff member write down the number of minutes in the chart somewhere to document

the amount of face to face time with the patients in case an insurance company ever questions the

billing of these timed codes.

Suppose the doctor practices in a very nice neighborhood and has a lovely office. His or her

hourly rate might be $400 an hour. In that case, he or she would bill $200 for the first half hour

of the new patient exam (99203) and another $200 for the second half hour of the new patient

exam (99354). Progress exams would be properly billed as $100 for the fifteen minutes (99213)

and $200 for the next thirty minutes (99354) assuming the progress exam took at least forty-five

minutes.

When chiropractors follow the correct billing procedures, use these timed billing codes properly

and apply their own hourly billing rate to these codes then the doctor can be paid for the time

needed to sit face to face with the patient and fill out the Symptoms, Exam, Diagnosis and

Treatment Plan forms. With these forms completely filled out and in the patient file, the doctor

can then use the Incorporation by Reference doctrine, refer to them in the daily SOAP notes and

dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to write daily chart notes. On top of this

enormous time savings to the treating doctor, she is paid her hourly rate for the time spent filling

out the forms because these “Evaluation & Management” codes include the time that the doctor

spend consulting, examining and making clinical decisions such as “what is the patient’s

diagnoses and what kinds of treatment should I do to help the patient get well.” Filling out these

forms is “decision making” and , if the doctors does it with the patient in the office face to face,

the doctor can charge his/her hourly rate for filling out these forms as decisions are made.

Imagine how happy the chiropractor’s staff would be if all of the patient’s paperwork was filled

out at the time of the patient’s visit before they go back up to the front desk. Imagine how happy

the chiropractor would be knowing that he or she never has to hear the staff say, “Doctor, would

you get the paperwork filled out?”

So How Does This Allow You To Stop Writing SOAP Notes?

Once you have filled out the forms and billed your hourly rate for the proper Evaluation &

Management time spent face to face with the patient, you can take off the “doctor” had where

you “diagnose” the patient and then put on the “treatment” hat for a month without having to

write extensive SOAP notes all the time. Each time the patient comes into the office, you simply

“Incorporate by Reference” all of your most recent Symptoms form, Exam forms, Diagnosis

form and Treatment plan form into your SOAP notes by referring to them in your SOAP notes as

I described above. SOAP notes can look like this:

May 12, 2017

S: See most recent Symptoms form on file

O: See most recent Exam forms on file

A: See most recent Diagnosis form on file

P: Treatment Plan As Outlined in most recent Treatment Plan on file

The can also look like this:

May 12, 2017 – I followed the most recent SOAP notes on file

What If You Deviate From Your Written Treatment Plan?

As I demonstrated earlier during this course, only then do you have to actually write something

in your SOAP notes. For example, you might write:

P: Treatment Plan As Outlined in most recent Treatment Plan on file except 15 minutes of

neck massage substituted for 15 minutes of ultrasound today.

If the patient comes in with new symptoms, simply write, “See most recent Symptoms form

on file. In addition, the patient has the new symptom of right hip pain.”

Try to remember that the medical doctor (who wears the diagnosis hat) sends the patient to the

physical therapist (who wears the treatment hat) and if the patient tells the physical therapist

about some new symptom, the physical therapist would have to send the patient back to the

medical doctor to get a new diagnosis. Since this is a hassle, it is not usually done and the

physical therapist assumes that the medical doctor will figure out any new diagnoses the next

time the patient is examined. If the new symptom or injury is significant (I’m having a heart

attack) then the therapist needs to take care of that right away. If the new symptom is minor or,

as is most common, represents only waxing and waning of the same symptoms from day to day,

there is no need to put on your doctor hat and start making new diagnosis all the time. Trust that

you will be thoroughly examining the patient within the month at the next progress exam and

you can analyze it then, put it into your new diagnosis and treatment plan forms and then change

how you plan to help the patient during the ensuing month.

Does This REALLY Work?

Yes. California Board Rules & Regulations Section 318 states: Active and inactive

chiropractic patient records must include all of the following:

(1) Patient's full name, date of birth, and social security number (if available);

(2) Patient gender, height and weight. An estimated height and weight is acceptable where the

physical condition of the patient prevents actual measurement;

(3) Patient history, complaint, diagnosis/analysis, and treatment must be signed by the primary

treating doctor. Thereafter, any treatment rendered by any other doctor must be signed or initialed by

said doctor;

(4) Signature of patient;

(5) Date of each and every patient visit;

(6) All chiropractic X-rays, or evidence of the transfer of said X-rays;

(7) Signed written informed consent as specified in Section 319.1.

Notice that number 1, 2 and 4 can be accomplished on the patient intake forms the first day the

patient comes into your office. Number 3 is accomplished by doing your SOAP notes during your

initial exam AND once a month during your re-exams. Number 5 is the ONLY thing you are

required to write (in California, check your state’s rules) on the days you perform treatments in

between the monthly re-exams.

The secret is genuine and thorough progress exams. You will note that with my forms, the

patient fills out the Symptoms form and the top two-thirds of every extremity exam form. The

patient with a brain concussion also fills out the Acute Concussion Evaluation, the Epworth

Sleepiness Scale and the Rivermead Post-Concussion Symptoms Questionnaire. Using my

forms means the patient is doing a lot of your work and you are billing your hourly rate for all

the time you spend reviewing those forms with the patient and checking off all the boxes on the

Diagnosis and Treatment Plan forms.

These forms communicate exactly what is wrong with the patient in plain English so that

attorneys and claim adjusters. Your records are bullet-proof. If anyone ever asks, “What were

Mary’s symptoms on May 3?” You reply, “The note I made May 3

refer back to and

incorporate my most recent consultation and Symptoms form with this patient. The most recent

Symptoms form on the patient was filled out April 14

. Mary’s symptoms waxed and waned

from day to day but I was still treating Mary on May 3

for the same symptoms she had on April

. So Mary’s symptoms on May 3

were (list off all the symptoms checked on the April 14

Symptoms form in your patient chart.)

What if you are pressed with a question like, “How do you know that is accurate?” You simply

reply, “My standard practice with note keeping is to incorporate by reference forms that are

already in my patient file and to only write an exception when I deviate from what is already on

file. For example, look at the note I made March 28

. See how I wrote, See most recent

symptoms form on file. In addition, patient also has the new symptom of left index finger pain.

Since I did not write any deviation or exception on May 3

, I am quite certain that the symptoms

for which I treated Mary on May 3

are accurately reflected in the April 14

Symptoms form to

which I referred on May 3

.”

Show Your Work To Get Paid For Doing Progress Exams

I also suggest that the treating chiropractor using my forms follow the advice of their sixth grade

teachers. Show your work. Remember that the teacher would give partial credit on math

problems if you showed your work (even if you did not get the answer correctly.) Claim

adjusters at the medical payments department get claims all the time printed on simple claim

forms and they think, “This is a lot of money. I wonder how much work this chiropractor

actually did?” In a situation involving Medical Payments insurance, faxing the Symptoms,

Exam, Diagnosis and Treatment Plan forms to the medical payments adjuster along with the bill

allows them to see all the work you did. The claim adjuster will see your excellent work, know

that you did all the work you have billed for and will pay the claim (and be far less likely to try

to reduce the bill.) Show your work and get paid like a doctor again.

In the case of group health insurance, there is often no mechanism of showing your work when

you submit a bill (especially electronically.) However, you still have all this thorough and

accurate written documentation in your file in case they ask to see your file or ask you to “send

your SOAP notes.)

In case the State Board receives a complaint about you from any patient, you have a thorough,

accurate, detailed patient chart that describes on paper exactly what is wrong with your patient

and your reasoning for treating the patient in the way you did. Ethical, accurate patient notes

will help you very much in case of a State Board complaint or a malpractice lawsuit.

Doctors Must Stop Leaving Out Important Facts

It is assumed by all the lawyers and insurance company adjusters that ALL the facts that exist are

in the doctor’s records and reports. I can tell you as a doctor that the reality is that 90% of the

material facts surrounding your injuries are in the doctor’s head and are never written down.

Claim adjusters and lawyers do not know what is in the doctor's head. They only know what is

written down in the doctor's notes. Doctors must keep better records than they have been or the

patient will be the victim of the accident a second time.

Some of the worst offenders in the medical community are specialists. Specialists tend to write

down only the facts that are related to their specialty. For example, orthopedic surgeons

routinely fail to assess or report a brain concussion since it is not an “orthopedic” problem.

Brain concussions are neurological so orthopedic surgeons often do not even mention it. Claim

adjusters and lawyers do not understand the way specialists write notes and reports. They think

the specialist included all the facts. The reality is that the orthopedist only included the

orthopedic facts. The neurology, cardiology, urology, proctology, dermatology, and gynecology

facts are generally always left out of an orthopedic report. The claim adjusters and lawyers are

often missing a very large percentage of the material facts about what is wrong with the patient.

Many (if not most) personal injury cases do not have both a neurosurgeon and an orthopedic

surgeon involved. They merely have one or the other. Justice cannot be served where the only

specialist that sees the patient is an orthopedic surgeon who does not report the patient’s brain

concussion because it is not an orthopedic injury. As the saying goes, “If you are a hammer, the

whole world looks like a nail.” Orthopedic surgeons examine the joints and report on the

medical status of the patient’s joints. They may miss or simply do not report many other injuries

from the car accident. Claim adjusters and lawyers may not have all the facts when they make a

decision about your financial fate. The insurance companies have exploited this situation to

prove you are not really injured. The reality is that doctors may have failed the patient by

keeping poor records or being too specialized to report all of the patient’s injuries.

Likewise, emergency rooms are notorious for missing injuries. The specialty of the emergency

room is to make sure you do not die. If you live, they consider that they have done their job.

Insurance adjusters exploit emergency room records all the time and use them incorrectly to

"prove" that the patient did not have certain injuries on the day of the accident. They imply the

patient must have made up a bunch of phony injuries later to try to scam their insurance

company for more money. They tend to get away with it because the patient’s attorney (the

plaintiff attorney) does not understand this specialization of doctors and how it affects the

records they keep.

Lawyers have no idea whether that patient was the only patient in the emergency room at the

time with a team of doctors and nurses working on her/him (as if this were ever true) or whether

that patient was one of many, many patients in the emergency room at the time she/he was there.

The lawyer may not appreciate or understand that patient may have sat there for three hours

while the E.R. doctors went away to take care of a gunshot victim. They didn’t think the patient

in the car accident as going to die so they just left her/him there to go save the life of somebody

else. It is entirely possible that when they returned to help the car accident patient several hours

later, another patient came in with who was gushing blood out of a deeply cut hand or arm. The

car accident patient may have been left alone to wait again while E.R. personnel handled bigger

emergencies.

The emergency room may have been so busy that they never got around to checking the car

accident patient thoroughly. They may have needed the bed for somebody else who might die if

they did not give away the bed. The car accident patient may have been looked at briefly and

sent home. Doctors do not like to admit this occurs (fearing malpractice lawsuits.) I assure you

it happens.

If the E.R. was very busy, the medical team had very little time or resources to examine the car

accident patient. They made sure she/he was not bleeding to death and was likely to live and

sent her/him home. There is frequently a tremendous amount of medical information that is not

written down in the emergency room records. Some of it is left out because they didn't ask all

the questions. Some of it is left out because they do not have time to write it all down because an

ambulance just rolled in with a gunshot victim that will die if they don't stop dealing with the car

accident victim and rush over to treat the gaping hole in the gunshot victim's stomach.

Let me just state for the record, emergency room consultations and examinations are not

thorough. They are not designed to be thorough. They are designed to quickly assess the patient

for life-threatening injuries and prevent death. If the patient lived, the emergency room doctors

and nurses did their job. Claim adjusters mistakenly believe the E.R. records accurately and

thoroughly explain all the patient’s injuries. They most certainly do not.

Don't think that I don't respect and admire emergency room doctors and nurses. They are often

the cream of the crop of doctors and nurses in the world. They are talented and have an

unbelievable constitution to be able to deal with life and death on a daily basis and still remain

sane. If you have a heart attack or your leg was bit off by a shark, the men and women in your

emergency room are the best in the world to save your life. Thoroughly examining every car

accident victim that has no life-threatening injuries is simply not their job.

In addition to your injuries that are overlooked in the E.R. because they are not life-threatening,

E.R. personnel frequently make a serious omission when it comes to the question about whether

the car accident patient was unconscious after a car accident. Most E.R. nurses ask, “Do you

remember being unconscious?” That is the dumbest question in the history of the English

language. It is the same as asking, “Are you asleep?" These are perhaps the only two questions

that can never be answered, "Yes." Do you remember what happened during the eight hours you

were asleep last night?

Nobody remembers being unconscious. The correct question is, “What is the first thing you

remember after the accident?”

I recently met with a law client. I had read the E.R. records before the meeting and knew the

nurse had written, “Denies LOC.” This is short for “Denies loss of consciousness.” I first asked

my client if she remembered the E.R. nurse asking her whether she had been unconscious after

the accident. She did not remember being asked the question. There are two possible answers

for that: (1) The nurse never asked the question; or (2) my client had been so stunned or dazed

after the accident that she had anterograde amnesia (cannot remember events after the

concussion.) Something was terribly wrong with the E.R. records. They either missed a

concussion or lied about asking the question about loss of consciousness. I tend to believe the

nurse would not have lied. It is far more likely that the nurse asked the wrong question, “Were

you unconscious?” The dazed patient said, “No.”

I then asked my client the correct question, “What is the first thing you remember after the

accident?” She stared off into space for almost a full minute and then replied, “I remember my

daughter shaking me and when I opened my eyes I saw yellow police tape around my car and a

big red fire truck parked next to us.” It was obvious she had been unconscious long enough for

someone to call 911, for the police and paramedics to drive to the scene, and for police to string

up yellow tape around her car. This E.R. nurse made a critical medical mistake. She failed to

ask the correct question. She missed a significant brain concussion. She did irreparable damage

to my client’s legal case because the insurance company will not let go of her note despite a

respected neurosurgeon that examined her later and wrote an accurate account of my client’s

injuries (including the fact that she was unconscious and had a concussion.) The insurance

adjuster just keeps saying, “But the E.R. records say she was not unconscious.”

Chiropractors Must Be Thorough and Accurate

The time to be thorough and accurate is when you are wearing your doctor hat (during progress

exams when you make all the decision about diagnosis and treatment.) Once you have accurate,

thorough Symptoms, Exam, Diagnosis and Treatment Plan forms filled out during the progress

exam, simply refer to them in the daily SOAP notes and save yourself about 95% of the time you

used to spend writing SOAP notes.

It is not ethical for you to just write down a bunch of canned or computer generated SOAP notes

about the patient. Since you have learned in this class that you do not (generally) even need to

do anything on treatment days except refer to all your most recent Symptoms, Exam, Diagnosis

and Treatment Plan forms in your file, there is no need at all to even use computer generated

canned SOAP notes anymore. Just use the Incorporation by Reference doctrine and eliminate

95% of your SOAP note writing on treatment days.

Doctors must be thorough, accurate and honest in their record-keeping. In personal injury cases,

the doctor’s records are scrutinized very closely. A bunch of obviously canned or computer-

generated SOAP notes is really obvious and destroys your credibility.

Five Body “Parts” In Each Body “Area”

Each body area has five different parts (physical structures with the body area) that the doctor

must examine, diagnosis, and treat. The body “parts” in each area of the body are:

• Nerves

• Ligaments

• Tendons

• Muscles

• Bones

Your neck is not a body part. It is an area of your body that is made up of nerves, ligaments,

tendons, muscles, and bones. Your neck is thrown around violently during a whiplash and many

of the parts in your neck can be injured at the same time. Your doctor must examine each part

and diagnose each injured part. This is a tedious and time-consuming job if it is done correctly.

You may remember from chapters four and five that there are 22 ligaments in your neck. Your

doctor should evaluate and diagnose each of the 22 ligaments in your neck and report accurately

and thoroughly the injuries to each one. My job as your lawyer is very difficult if your doctor

ignores your ligaments and fails to diagnose three torn ligaments.

What is different about the typical motor vehicle collision case is the sheer number of injuries

you may have after a car accident. It is not uncommon for the car accident patient to come in

with 25 or 35 separate injuries to various body parts in several different body areas. For

example, you may have three injured ligaments in your neck, six injured muscles in your neck,

and two injured nerves in your neck for a total of eleven injured parts in your neck. Each of

these injured parts must have its own diagnosis code. You may also have one injured ligament,

three injured muscles, and two injured tendons for a total of six separate injured parts in your

right knee. Each of these must have its own diagnosis code. You may also have a brain

concussion with associated diagnosis of sleep disorder, fatigue, and cognitive dysfunction for a

total of four separate diagnosis codes for your brain.

In this example, eleven neck injuries plus six knee injuries plus four brain injuries make a total of

twenty-one injured parts in three separate areas of your body. The claim adjuster and attorneys

cannot accurately assess your claim if your doctor has failed to write each and every ICD-9

diagnosis code for all twenty-one injuries. Thorough, accurate, and honest is the standard

doctors must follow. Twenty-one total diagnosis codes is the only way a doctor can accurately

and honestly describe your injuries on paper.

If a basketball player sprains her ankle, there is only one injured body area (the ankle) and maybe

only one or two injured parts (e.g. tendons, ligaments.) If a baseball player throws out a runner

at home plate, he might injure his shoulder and, again, there is only one injured body area (the

shoulder) with maybe three injured parts in that shoulder (tendons, ligaments, and muscles.)

However, many or most people in car accidents have three, five, or sometimes seven injured

areas of the body with potentially four or five parts injured in each body area. The medical legal

system needs the facts and only the doctor can provide an accurate list of the facts that describe

your injuries. Use progress exam time to figure all of this out, write it down and get paid for it.

Then simply refer to all that good work in your SOAP notes for the next month until the next

progress exam.

The Symptoms Form

First of all, let me say that you can use any symptoms form in order to accomplish the goal of

reducing the amount of SOAP notes you write by using the Incorporation by Reference doctrine

as long as it is comprehensive and asks all the symptoms that your patient may have. I designed

my form and give it away for free to Chiropractors because it is so easy to use and

comprehensive at the same time.

Go to the Symptoms Form supplied with these notes and class materials now. Read through it

and you notice that it has the Patient’s Name, Today’s Date and the Date of Injury. It is

important that all three pieces of information are on each and every Symptoms Form (again,

whether you are using mine or not) because after four months or more, you will have done a

number of progress exams (aka re-exams) on the patient and people that look at your records

later will want to organize them by dates. It also makes it much easier to put the Exam Forms,

Diagnosis Forms and Treatment Plan forms all together and organize them to chart the patient’s

progress when the date it is filled out is on each form.

The attorney or claim adjuster reviewing your records might want to put all the Symptoms forms

in order and look to see if the patient is having fewer symptoms over time (hopefully because of

your treatments.) They the reviewer might want to reorganize them by date so that the

Symptoms, Exam, Diagnosis and Treatment Plan forms for each date are together. The reviewer

can then see quickly if all the symptoms were examined (by looking at the exam forms), see

quickly if you made a diagnosis for each symptom that was verified by the exam and finally to

see if you ignored any of the patient’s symptoms by never treating it (or putting it on your

treatment plan.)

Not only does this system of accountability work well for anyone reviewing your file but it is

also helpful for you, the Chiropractor, to organize your patient files, find things quickly, and scan

the forms to look for a pattern of improvement in the patient. Use the progress examination time

to review the file with the patient and if you already have several sets of all these forms, it is easy

to tell the patient, “We have been doing ultrasound on your neck for the past month. Now I am

going to change your therapy to _____________ for the next 30 days.”

One Final Thought

It will take us some time to train the insurance companies that we have a new system of record

keeping. The reality is that by following my advice, your patient records should be infinitely

more accurate, more detailed and more thorough. Once everybody gets used to our new system,

we will no longer have to keep explaining it. In the mean time, I have included a form titled

“Notice Regarding Monthly SOAP Notes” and I suggest you place a copy of this form in your

patient’s chart so that when the insurance companies copy your records, they will understand

how your records are kept and why they comply with California’s Board Rules and Regulations.

For doctors taking this course in states other than California, I suggest reading your state’s rules

and regulations and modifying this form by quoting your state’s rules.

Below please find samples of the forms

from Steve Eggleston’s website.

To access these forms

click on this link

Doctors Forms Page

User Name: great

Password: Doctor88**

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Marcus Strutz DC

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