ChiroTouch and Future Health Announce Merger
NEWS
Robert Moberg and Dr. Steven Kraus Discuss What This Means for Current Users and What to Expect in the Future
IT’S BIG NEWS FOR THE CHIROPRACTIC PROFESSION WHEN TWO COMPANIES THE SIZE OF CHIROTOUCH AND FUTURE HEALTH MERGE. THE INCREASING INFLUENCE OF CHANGES TO MEDICARE’S REPORTING REQUIREMENTS AND THE HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL HAVE MADE ANYONE PLAYING THE INSURANCE GAME PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE COMPANIES THEY WORK WITH, AS WELL AS THEIR LONG-TERM VIABILITY. THE CASH-BASED PRACTICE WILL ALSO BE ENCOURAGED TO ADAPT, AS A RESULT OF INTEROPERABILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR SOFTWARE SYSTEMS. THROUGH TEAMING UP, THIS NEW COMPANY IS SURE TO CARRY EVEN GREATER INFLUENCE AS THEY LEVERAGE OUTCOME-BASED DATA TO ADVOCATE ON BEHALF OF THE CHIROPRACTIC PROFESSION IN THE MIDST OF THE MASSIVE CHANGES SWEEPING THE HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY. IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH THE AMERICAN CHIROPRACTOR (TAC), DR. STEVEN KRAUS (SK), CHIEF MARKET STRATEGY OFFICER, AND ROBERT MOBERG (RM), CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, OF CHIROTOUCH EXPLAIN HOW CURRENT USERS WILL FEEL THE CHANGES DURING THE NEXT TWO YEARS, AS WELL AS WHAT FUTURE USERS CAN EXPECT AS THEY AIM TO SHAPE THE CHIROPRACTIC DOCTOR OF THE FUTURE.
TAC: How is this merger going to affect current users?
RM: Current users are going to find increased innovation for both the ChiroTouch and SmartCloud platforms as a result of the merger. In fact, one of the reasons why we tried to bring ourselves together was to create the opportunity for platform parity. There are great features inside of both platforms, and we’re going to begin taking the best from both and creating two platforms with those harmonized features. Our user interfaces aie different, our design methodologies are different, and our flows aie a little bit different. So as we go back out and listen to the market and identify what they feel aie the things that serve them the best, we’re going to try to develop those solutions as we move forward. In addition, we will begin immediately leveraging our industry-leading training and support to serve both systems.
TAC: So is the end product going to be more of a turnkey for both of those types of software, where they’re buying a package versus adding on different apps for, say, the SmartCloud version?
RM: Yes. The reality is that the market right now is showing a propensity for both platforms. Nobody in the market is shying away from a client-server platform. It continues to be growing rapidly. The cloud is also very significant, showing more growth gains on a year-to-year basis against the installed base than our client-server configurations. So we believe that the market is going to want both platforms, and we’ll continue to innovate along those lines. We’ll continue to align ourselves to build the best platforms based on continued and valued input from industry-leading practices and from the culmination of our combined experiences in serving doctors across the country.
TAC: Is there anything significant about the timing of this merger?
SK: It came around because we’ve known each other now for a number of years but have gotten to know each other a lot better over the last half year. As we’ve mentioned, we kind of crossed paths over the last few years being competitors at major events, then started talking a little bit with each other. We realized that we shared both a vision and mission to elevate the profession, and it only made sense to come together and focus our energy jointly for the good of the industry. So one of the benefits to our users is, by bringing the brain trust of the architects from the ChiroTouch side and the architects from the Future Health SmartCloud side, we are able to bring the best of both worlds together and share those benefits so that our users get those efficiencies into their software, which ultimately is the lifeblood of their practice. And that’s really what the EHR serves as. It’s going to be the hub of their practice ecosystem so that all other components are going to interface with our collective technology with either platform.
TAC: When should users begin to feel those kinds of changes?
SK: Over the next six months, they’re going to start seeing new features and functionality coming out. At some point, ChiroTouch users will begin to see dashboards and business
fiÉIt’s going to be the hub of their practice ecosystem so that all other components are going to interface with our collective technology with either platform. J J
data, and over time we will be bringing life to the clinical data that will provide cost-effective benefits to drive decisions with policy makers, legislators, third-party payers, and ultimately back to our profession and our doctors. This will provide powerful information toward making better patient-management decisions and better business decisions with the analytics that we’re able to give to them, so they can demonstrate their outcomes more efficiently.
TAC: Would you talk about the role that each of you is going to occupy with the newly formed company, ChiroTouch?
RM:
I’ll continue to function in the CEO/president capac-
_ ity and I’ll run the now-combined
ChiroTouch company. ChiroTouch has a prominent name in the marketplace, so we certainly want to make sure to continue with that branding while we will move ChiroTouch toward becoming more of a company than it is a product. Steve will continue on in his role as chief market strategy officer in our efforts to become the thought leader in the marketplace. Steve has decades of experience inside the chiropractic profession. He can team with me to make sure that he’s in the market talking about how EHR is going to be transformative in the marketplace, sharing our ideas about where we think EHR is really going, what the role of EHR is, and how we can begin to mold that future.
SK: I’m extremely excited about this teamwork approach because I get to focus on the area that I love the most, and that is bringing effective solutions to chiropractors. The profession is more successful only when individual practices are more successful. And that’s going to drive more people to doctors of chiropractic because, again, our collective technology is going to not only help the doctors run their practices more effectively, but the big data is going to drive more utilization to doctors of chiropractic. I’m thrilled about teaming up with Robert because of the talents that he and his entire team at ChiroTouch bring. I’m excited to bring our talented group that I have worked with for the past 10 years to mesh together.
TAC: Great.
RM: A couple of things to make sure we note is that the future for EHR software is not going to get easier—it’s not going to be for the faint of heart. As a technology company, we have to lead in the areas of meaningful use phase two, meaningful use phase three, HIPAA standards, ICD-10 coding, and potentially ICD-11 coding when that gets here. CMS is talking an awful lot about interoperability—how will each EHR system be able to communicate with the other—where the medical doctor can communicate with the chiropractor.
■ " ...we will be developing platform parity so we want to be sure we are representing what will serve our clients best as we provide them with opportunities to change. J J
We have to make sure that we continue to stay attuned to what those needs are and build technology to that effect; it’s going to take a pretty substantial company. Then, as Steve said early on, for us to be able to amass that data and begin using that data to be the platform on which we begin to speak to policy makers, and communicate through and with regulatory agencies to bring heightened attention to the fact that chiropractic services are delivering amazing changes into a person’s life for far less cost. That message and information will be paid attention to; that’ll be understood clearly when the data begins to reflect that message. Data drives decisions and we have an opportunity working together to significantly get to that data and begin to enable data to speak for the chiropractic profession with a megaphone, when previously it may have been more of a whisper.
TAC: So should current users of Future Health expect to be able to acquire the ChiroTouch server-based software at a discount, or vice versa?
RM: We will be putting together a program that allows clients to make that kind of transfer, depending on what their situation is. But you know, moving software platforms is not easy; being sure the platform a client is moving to better solves the challenges, and ensuring the process is thorough, is critical to us. For example, as Dodge and Mercedes merged, it didn’t necessarily provide the opportunity for an easy swap. As we said in the beginning, we will be developing platform parity so we want to be sure that we are representing what will serve our clients best as we provide them with opportunities to change.
TAC: And that’s the long-term goal.
RM: That’s the long-term goal. Fourteen or fifteen months, we’d love to be in that position.
For more information on ChiroTouch or SmartCloud, visit www. chirotouch. com.
TAC
