A Software's Simplicity

Candy Herfert, a 1979 Michigan State University graduate, has been the program coordinator for the State of Michigan Influenza program, the Emergency Room and Admitting Department supervisor for the Lansing General Hospital, and the Blood Pressure Control Program program coordinator for the Branch, Hillsdale, St. Joseph County Health Department. In 1983, she moved to the Detroit metro area to become the office manager at Herfert Chiropractic Clinic. Today, Candy is the owner of Herfert Software and manages Herfert Chiropractic Clinic.

Episode Highlights:

3:36 – Technology and chiropractic in the 80s! “I've been in chiropractic for 43 years now. I started out as a chiropractic assistant and then started working in the software company. My husband, Richard Herfert, started Herfert Software in 1980 before the chip was even invented. We had an Ohio Scientific computer that had the big tape drives for backups and a teletype printer - the whole nine yards back in the 80s. It just evolved from there when the chip was invented, and programming became easier. Everything was more efficient and effective. We used to sell computers along with our program, which we didn't have to do that anymore once the chip was invented. We now have both server-based and cloud-based programs for people. It's been quite a ride.”

5:27 – From medicine to chiropractic. “I started out in medicine as a supervisor for an emergency room. Then I went on to work for a health department. Luckily, when I lived in Coldwater, Michigan, I had a health educator that was from California that was really into natural health and educated me on a lot of things. I was very open to it because I had a mom that got sick with cancer when I was 14, back in the day when you drank your chemotherapy before there was hospice or any pink ribbons or anything like that. I knew that medicine was not the answer. I knew that wasn't the field that I wanted to be in. When I moved back from Coldwater to Sterling Heights, Michigan, I got a job as a CA with Herfert Chiropractic Clinic and my husband loved teaching the staff what chiropractic was all about. You weren't just an employee. At the time, I was divorced and had a 15-month-old that had terrible ear infections. I got him under chiropractic care, and he never had another one. He is actually a chiropractor today.”

21:13 - Sticking to the promise. “He started the company as a way to keep the chiropractic profession from typing out claim forms, having the great big paper appointment book, and writing the patient's name 15 times. He started the software company to make the chiropractic profession more efficient by making the office easier to run and manage, tracking patient appointments, and billing more easily. It was long before electronic billing - everything was the paper claims. Even after the chip and multiple other software companies were invented in the 90s, we still wanted to keep the software simple so that anybody being hired could use it. If you could read, you could use it. We also wanted to keep it very affordable, so new doctors and cash-only practices could afford it. The whole concept was to make life easier and make it affordable, and we have stuck with that promise.”

26:30 - Once you buy it, it’s yours. “Again, I always tell people most software does the same thing. It's just how they do it. Most softwares have appointment scheduling and billing. Some have to buy modules like you have to buy the exams. Our software you get it all. There's cap on patient amounts or needing to purchase more. You get it all. It's yours. If you buy it server-based, it's yours and you don't have to be on support. We want you to be on support, but it's yours and you can have it for the rest of your life. We have a lot of people that are cash practices that aren't on support, and they still just use our program because it still works. It's simple, it's easy, and it's got what you need at a good price.”

28:16 – Changes in the profession as far as practice management. “Well, electronic billing would be the number one. It got rid of the mail, the envelopes, the printing, the lost claims. Then, I would say the ability to put your notes into a system and then be able to print them out to email or download them to a company. That's another big one. Also, one is the ability to make multiple appointments. Now I know a lot of practices don't necessarily practice that way, but I will tell you from working in the office, people fall through the cracks. To me, to keep your practice going, even if you're pretty much a walk-in, you still might want to know when it's been more than a month that somebody's been in your office. That's just my opinion on it. Yeah, I think that's a very important feature that has helped offices.”

 34:39 – The future of Herfert Software. “Well, we're excited because the software has been reprogrammed in a newer version. It's very much the same, but just in a more modern version, which is also going to make it easier to make upgrades and updates. That's coming out within the next few months. We've been testing because I never like to release anything until it's absolutely ready and not going to cause problems for our current software owners. In the future, my son is going to take it over when I'm gone. He's going to carry on the torch as well. My husband loved chiropractic and knew he wanted to be a chiropractor at 13. We're all passionate about it. We have great support. We have great staff that, at one time, were CAs. We’re not just a software program – we’re a chiropractic software program. We know what chiropractic is, what the diagnostic codes are, what the CPT codes are. We are able to help our owners at on a different level than a lot of software companies can.”

38:26 - Important lessons learned as a CA that helps run the company now. “Organization. You need to be organized. You need to double check things. Oftentimes, when people are saying it's just not working, it's user error. We're always happy to answer the questions, but that's probably the biggest thing I learned. Creative people are not necessarily organized people, and I really had to teach myself to be organized in a little bit of a disorganized fashion. Our software has daily pop ups or alerts, so you can think of it as sticky notes. You don’t have sticky notes everywhere in your office - you can put those things in the software and create messages to the employees. You can give them a master file and send them alerts. Everyone knows where to go look for it.”

42:35 - Pricing of Herfert Software (+ Discount Opportunity!) “The server-based software is one price, and then the software is yours. If you want to stay on support, that's based on how many workstations you have. The cloud-based is a setup fee and a training. We set it up for you and then it's monthly, depending on how many logins and passwords you need. It's very reasonable. If you're purchasing it for the server, we can give you up to four months to pay for it. I can probably do a special for anybody that saw it here. If you want to go on the cloud, I'll give $250 off. Just tell me that you heard it with Jay. If you want to purchase the server, I'll give you 10% off. Just tell me you heard it with Brad."

Contact Candy

Candy’s Cell: 586-216-6462

Candy’s Email 

Herfert Software’s Website