Bookkeeping Tips for Doctors and Healthcare Practices

Check out our professional bookkeeping tips on best practices that can help you operate your medical practice more efficiently and improve cash flow.

Bookkeeping for healthcare and medical practices can be complex. From working with insurance and third-party billing companies to preparing financial information for your board, bookkeeping for doctors and healthcare practices requires specialized knowledge. Here’s how you can improve cash flow and provide timely, accurate data to your CPA and board.

Keeping the ‘Flow’ in Cash Flow
Healthcare practices face unique billing challenges. They have to navigate a complicated insurance bureaucracy that includes explanation of benefits (EOB), the process in which the insurance company determines how much of the cost of a given procedure they will cover and how much is the patient’s responsibility. So even in a best-case scenario, your practice has to collect from two different sources for each bill, which can slow collection considerably. If the patient disputes the insurance company’s EOB, that can delay payment for weeks, or even months.

It’s important for a healthcare practice to do everything it can to ensure steady cash flow. That incudes billing promptly for each procedure and using the proper current procedure terminology (CPT) code to avoid delays or inadvertently undercharging for services.

An easy way to improve cash flow at your healthcare practice is to regularly run your accounts receivable aging report, so you can immediately pursue any account that is more than 90 days out of date. Running these reports frequently and following up with late accounts will help you keep your cash flow on track.

Up-to-Date Financial Data for Your CPA and Board
An outsourced bookkeeping and controller services provider can help streamline your healthcare practice in other important ways as well. A bookkeeping pro knows how to document and track all of the financial data you’ll need to deliver to your CPA at tax time, for example. This not only helps avoid potential fines for late filing, but also helps you optimize the time your CPA spends working on your taxes.

Do you have to prepare reports for a board of directors or other governing body? Professional bookkeeping support can help with that, too. Just as they can provide timely, thorough records for your CPA, an outsourced bookkeeper can tailor reports for whatever requests the board might have, including cash flow forecasts. Responding to such requests quickly, with accurate, up-to-date data also improves communication and builds your board’s confidence in you.

Gain the Time to Focus on Your Patients
Just as your patients trust their healthcare to an expert in the medical field, you can ensure your business has the right care by trusting your bookkeeping to industry professionals. With professionals taking care of your books, you can keep your focus on your patients.

At Supporting Strategies, our experienced, U.S.-based professionals use secure, best-of-breed technology and a proven process to provide a full suite of bookkeeping and controller services. Are you ready to learn how you can move your business forward? Contact Supporting Strategies today.