Good Record-keeping Helps New Business Owners Avoid Tax-time Headaches
Be The Good Guy: Use Billing Services For Your Practice
Terra Fields
In many businesses and industries, the hardest thing to do is collect money from people that owe it. It is an even more difficult thing when you have to get money from patients for services rendered. You cannot refuse patients because they cannot pay, nor can patients give back the kidney, the lung, the bone marrow transplant, or the dental crowns after they have received them. Medical professions are triple-edged swords; as a doctor you are required to help save lives and make people better, people should pay when and if they can, and nobody wants the extra body parts back when payment is not made. Here is how you can remain "the good doctor" and still provide all of your patients with the best quality care.
Billing Services for Physicians in Any Practice
It does not matter if you work in a hospital, a neighborhood clinic, or your own practice. There are billing services available to you. The billing agents are aggressive, and they can go after patients to get the money you earned. This allows you to remain impartial in your care to your patients, regardless of their ability to pay. It also means that you do not have to pursue payment from your patients yourself, which can create some very ugly unpleasantness between you and your patients.
How Billing Services Work a Little Differently in the Hospital Setting
Billing services in the hospital setting work a little differently. The hospital pays you regardless of which patients you see, based on your hours/contracted salary. Then the hospital hires the billing services to either work for them directly out of the hospital, or work for the hospital as independent contractors. The hospital recoups the money they paid you via the billing service agents' aggressive tactics and extraction of the money from patients who still owe it.
Referring Billing out to Collections Agents
If billing agents cannot successfully extract the money from those who owe it, then the accounts are referred to collection agencies. Most of the time, as a doctor, you will not know that this has taken place, nor will you know which patients' accounts have been referred to collections. This is also nice since you are operating completely blind to those who owe you money. Patients get the same level of care from you that they always have, with the same pleasant bedside manner, and you still get paid.
For more information or assistance, contact companies like Global Health Consultants.
Share
I have been a business owner for years, and I want to share some tips for success with new entrepreneurs out there who are struggling. I have had my share of business ups and downs, but there was one lesson that it took me way too long to learn: Good financial record-keeping year-long keeps tax time from being so stressful. During my first year in business, I kept most business expense receipts, but when tax time arrived, I found out that I needed to save much more than just those receipts. Thanks to technology, I was able to recover most of the documentation I needed, but it was a huge headache. I quickly invested in good record-keeping software and it made tax time much less stressful during the following years.