My name is Dr. Donald Hodges and I graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic (Davenport, IA) in December of 1978. During the early 1980's when computer were first coming into common usage, I purchased a computer to help me with the bookkeeping chores.
However, when my wife Sheila came to work for me in my office, all I had was a manual Royal typewriter to complete insurance claim forms. When Sheila began to complain about that situation, I checked into chiropractic software systems. At that time a complete system could cost $30,000!
I really liked working with the computer so I thought, "maybe I can write a computer program myself that would let me fill in the top half of the claim form. Then only the services would have to be typed in on the manual typewriter". Which is what I did. I taught myself programming and step by step began to develop my own software.
The lack of software, however, was not our only problem. We also lacked know-how. Sheila's complaint changed to "We're working twice for our money. We earn it once from the patient and then have to turn around and earn it again from the insuance company!" Sometimes fate is kind to people who are trying very hard. We hired a young lady that had worked for a major insurance carrier for eight years as a claims payor. We 'picked her brain' for all the information that we could. This know-how was implimented into the software as it was being developed. Before long we were able to file claims to Blue Cross and get our money back in as little as six days (mailbox to mailbox)!
It then occured to me that I might have something that I could sell. So, with fear and trepidation, I sold my practice and started selling software and computer systems in 1987.
After we started installing computer systems we found that most offices, much to our suprise, didn't know how to do insurance properly. We saw that in order for our clients to get the results that we did, they would need more than a shrink-wrapped box of diskettes. That's when we started including on-site installation with our software.
It became clear to us that there was a great demand for our insurance know how so we developed an insurance manual and began teaching our insurance workshops. To date, doctors from 44 states have attended (including Alaska). Generally half the class will be repeat doctors and office staff that want to stay up to date with our information.