Does Your Medical Practice Have the Right Accounting Resources?
The accounting resources needed by businesses across industries vary drastically. In healthcare, financial, operational, and technology needs can differ significantly from one practice to another. Your operations and transactions define your billing system requirements, as well as your bookkeeping and accounting needs. To achieve and sustain financial success, you need access to the right accounting resources tailored to your specific clinical and billing operations and in line with legislative and regulatory updates.
When many practice owners think about CPA services, they think of the traditional accounting services first, such as financial statement preparation or help maximizing their tax deductions. However, audits, reviews, and tax filings are only the tip of the iceberg in the healthcare industry. You may be surprised to learn other ways we’re helping our healthcare clients.
Financial Services
With comprehensive accounting resources, there isn’t just one single road to financial improvement. Through revenue cycle reviews, accurate budgeting, and projections, you can build your practice up to where you want it to be. Services like cost accounting analyses can uncover missed opportunities to save.
For providers interested in merging with or acquiring other practices, proper accounting resources also include services and advisory related to contract review and negotiation and financial due diligence. For start-ups, your tool belt should contain access to market assessments, best practices for obtaining capital, and assistance determining the accounting methods best-suited to your practice.
Have you considered the financial possibilities if you restructure your practice? With the right accounting resources, restructuring your business, or even your physician compensation model, can make a big difference in your practice’s long-term financial success.
Operational Services
What about performance improvement? Restructuring isn’t only about finance. It’s also about efficiency. Accounting resources can help here too. Governance structure and operational reviews can show you where your strengths and weaknesses are. Service assessments can also reveal areas of opportunity where your CPA may assist in service line creation and development.
No matter where your practice falls in the business lifecycle, new territory is overwhelming. Wouldn’t it be great if you had professional help examining alternative sites or specialty units for acquisition? You can! It’s one of the many accounting resources I provide at L&H.
Technology Services
In most of the things you do in your practice, you rely on technology to get you there successfully. With the volume of transactions and the immediate need for contactless payment options today, for example, modernized payment options have become essential for medical practices. Set-up and analysis of medical-specific accounting and computer systems isn’t easy. The right accounting resources can be a technological game-changer.
Legislative Considerations
As a practice owner, compliance is always on your mind. More than ever, the legislative landscape is quick to evolve. You need an advisory team that can help with compliance filings, such as Medicare and Medicaid cost reports, that understands the intricacies of licensed bed capacity requirements, and that can help you stay on top of legislative and regulatory developments in your industry. For example, recent legislation has provided nursing homes with new ways to maximize their Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.
Contact Livingston & Haynes
My team at L&H is made of healthcare industry leaders. We are industry-savvy and help sole practitioners, group medical practices, and nursing homes stay ahead of the game by developing a strategic plan that focuses on every aspect of your operations. If you’re ready to take the next step, contact me today. I look forward to working with your practice.
by Maria Bunker, CPA
Maria Bunker, CPA, became a partner at Livingston & Haynes in 2017. She specializes in audits and tax planning and has worked with clients across a wide range of industries.