Deborah Helton, Director at BiggsKofford, discusses why physicians need to be aware of frequently overlooked barriers their practices face when considering revenue compression and inflationary supply chain price increases:
Medical practices face ever-evolving business climate changes.  Physicians may not be aware of the frequently overlooked barriers their practices face considering revenue compression and inflationary supply chain price increases.  To analyze both productivity and costs physicians depend on accurate and timely information. Continual ‘checkups’ are required to maintain useful financial information.
Most successful practices include physician review of weekly financial cashflow updates and continual monitoring of overhead costs.  Some signs of unattended financials include a lack of documented billing procedures and reconciliations between EMR and banking activity on the revenue side and missing internal controls such as vouching for shipping invoices to actual invoices on the expense side.  Financial reporting should allow owners to monitor patient visits, and procedure types and count trending and trending in large cost items such as medical supplies and personnel expenses.
Inefficient processes, inaccurate reporting, and a lack of key performance indicators can put a strain on medical practices that isn’t necessary and negatively impacts financial results. By fine tuning the specifics of these systems, physician practices can save time and money which will help their business achieve success.
With the volume and options available for evaluating your practice, it is understandable most physicians and practice managers do not have a high degree of trust in their existing accounting systems. Being provided accurate information, paired with confidence in accounting systems, is a necessity in today’s fast paced business environment. Conducting a detailed and unbiased evaluation of your current accounting system and its key players will unveil whether your accounting functions are overly simplistic, outdated, or if team training is needed. An accounting system evaluation can also uncover manual processes that should be automated, overstaffing issues, and cost saving opportunities.
There are several solutions to the above challenges; identifying training opportunities for your accounting team to ensure success, updating accounting software to an integrative and automated platform, and consulting with an experienced outsourced CFO that can provide insights on medical practice performance and best practices.  An optimal solution can be found by customizing a blend of the above based on your needs.
Balancing how to provide patients with the best care possible while successfully managing your financial performance is a constantly evolving process. Evaluating your accounting function against the ever-changing environment of medical practices means continually ‘checking up’ on your systems and team. This is big ask of physician group business owners whose main priority is patient care. The inclusion of an outsourced CFO can lessen the burden placed on owners and free up time for them to focus on what they do best!