If you are a chiropractor, a dentist, or any other type of health care professional - BEWARE!
Interactive Business Development ("IBD"), Medicus Marketing, TNG Systems, Inc. (in bankruptcy as of October or November), and Straightway CDA ("Straightway Chiropractic and Dental Affiliates") - are all companies out of Houston, Texas, and are all companies that were at one time, or are today, being run by the same indivuals, including, Max K. Day, Michael Day, Joshua Smith, and Alex Hernandez.
These gentlemen have mastered the art of the RIP-OFF, but hopefully not for long.
By way of background, these related companies market themselves as "practice marketing and management consultants", and promise, for something in the $35K to $50K range (typically, through a 5 year lease agreement with a third party) increased patient traffic and, of course, revenues.
Their "product" generally include the installation of hardware, software, multiple phone lines / auto-dialers for the purpose of cold-calling potential patients with canned scripts, mass mailers, "practice coaching", and TV and radio commercials.
Their contracts often come with a "response agreement" (essentially a buy-out option) that they will buy you out of the marketing and coaching program, providing you have followed all of "the standard usage requirements", which consists of 8 "compliance requirements" listed in their "contract."
The buy-out option in the TNG contracts generally consisted of a refund of X amount per month if the doctor did not get X number of new patients that month. Therefore, the buy-out option was deemed by the doctor to offer a "no-lose" proposition when deciding on whether to sign up with these companies.
After entering into the contract, the typical doctor would attempt to work through the system for several months, and when he or she noticed that he was not getting the promised number of new patients, he sought to exercise his buy-out response, and requested the agreed-upon refund.
Of course, in order to avoid giving the refund, the company was quick to point out to contract language that essentially provided that "failure to comply with ANY of the "standard usage requirements" voids the response agreement", and refused to give any refund.
Most doctors with whom I have discussed this, tell me that it was virtually impossible to meet any, never mind all, of the 8 "standard usage requirements", and that in many cases there was no way for the doctor to prove to the company that he met the usage requirements.
TNG recently filed for bankruptcy, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of its customers with a lease contract (with a 3rd party, of course) of up to $50K in many cases, and no service whatsoever.
When the particular doctor turns to the leasing company to try to get out of the lease agreement, he is told that the leasing company is an "innocent party" and that, as such, it will seek to enforce 100% of the lease agreement against the doctor. On various occasions, the leasing companies have sued the doctor when payment was discontinued.
Medicus Marketing recently took down its website, and there is no reason to believe that it won't be soon filing for bankruptcy.
Interactive Business Development ("IBD") is the current company through which these principals are operating, and their newest venture is Straightway Chiropractic & Dental Affiliates.
The Houston Better Business Bureau has, through November accepted over 40 complaints against TNG and Medicus Marketing. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the companies and the principals, and many more are surely to follow.
Lastly, in 1992 the Federal Trade Commission went after Max K. Day and Michael Day over an $11 million credit card fraud scheme.
If you are contemplating using any of these companies for your practice - think long and hard.
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