A How-To
for Your Business Side
Finding anything starts with knowing where to look. If you need help with
the business side of your medical practice, look to Somerset's experts for
solutions to your financial, business and tax problems.
Financial Support
To manage your practice’s finances, you need to monitor your cash flow—both
expenses and the collection of receivables. If you lack enough information
to track your practice’s performance, we can design statements that
summarize your practice’s financial condition and help you quickly identify
any areas that require attention.
We also can review all of your practice’s financial operations—including
the integrity and efficiency of your claim/payment system—to
identify why you have collection delays (or other cash flow problems) and
suggest solutions. Or, gaps in controls for collections, deposits, credit
cards and/or disbursements may be causing financial difficulties. We can
help you create and implement more effective income and disbursement
controls. And, when ancillary services and other initiatives are an issue,
we can measure their profitability and identify strategies for improvements.
Preventing Financial Fraud
Some simple safeguards that can help prevent financial misconduct from
hurting your practice:
-
Give patients an immediate receipt for all cash payments
-
Segregate accounting functions as much as practical
-
Never pre-sign checks or use a signature stamp
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Require every employee to take five or more consecutive vacation days a year while another individual does the same job
-
Always check job candidates’ job histories and references
Business
Support
Growing medical practices increasingly depend on computer systems to help
manage their business side. However, identifying suitable systems can be
time intensive and requires specialized knowledge. We can help you select
appropriate technology that will meet your needs affordably. Our
Information Solutions Team members have worked with many
practices and support many software packages—QuickBooks,
Peachtree, MAS 90, Abra HRIS and many others. To read how some of our health
care clients have worked with us, please
read our client success stories.
Our business support services also include expert advice on:
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Structuring and implementing a practice merger or acquisition
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Financing the acquisition of equipment and offices
-
Creating realistic budgets and business plans
-
Valuing a practice
-
Structuring buy-ins, buy-outs and buy/sell agreements
-
Distributing physician income
Tax
Planning and Preparation
Many planning opportunities are available for controlling a medical
practice’s federal and state taxes. Our firm’s tax experts can help you to
limit your practice’s tax liability. For example, the timing and financing
of capital expenditures and the management of year-end income and
expenditures might substantially impact your taxes. We also can make tax
projections during the year that help prevent costly surprises at year-end.
Medical practices often need assistance choosing a retirement plan that is
appropriate for their physicians’ ages and financial situations. We can help
you assess available plans and their tax impact.
In addition to expert tax planning, our firm can prepare timely federal and
state tax returns for your practice and for your physicians—and
take advantage of any tax-efficient choices that are appropriate to the
filers’ circumstances.
Rely On Us
The range of our firm’s capabilities is wide, but they are easily
summarized: We are a trusted business advisor for many clients and are
always ready to help solve your business-side problems. We understand the
business of medicine.
Please contact
any member of our
Health Care Team
at 317-472-2200 or 800-469-7206 to discuss your needs.
Health Care Commentaries is
provided by Somerset’s
Health Care Team
for our clients and other interested persons upon request. Since
technical information is presented in generalized fashion, no final
conclusion on these topics should be made without further review. For
additional information on the issues discussed, please contact a member
of our Health Care Team. This
document is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for
the purpose of avoiding tax penalties that may be imposed on the
taxpayer.
Somerset CPAs,
P.C.
3925 River Crossing Parkway, Third Floor
Indianapolis, Indiana 46240
317.472.2200 • 800.469.7206 • FAX 317.208.1200
http://healthcare.somersetcpas.com
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