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How do I avoid legal and accounting troubles with business partners?

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Posted by Jeana Brookes on August 28, 2012 at 11:07 am

tax preparation in encinitasWhen choosing strategic business partners one must consider how they will choose the right people, create an appropriate structure, define expected measures of success and identify potential threats or failures. Most importantly, one must not overlook legal and accounting in Encinitas issues that may arise during the partnership. Below are some key points the Financial Post recommends when starting a successful, trouble-free business relationship between two entities.

Protect intellectual property: It is important that any business agreement safeguards the intellectual property of each participant. Doing so helps to reduce the risk of unnecessarily exposing what makes your company special. This alone can have considerable implications on the ownership of licenses and future royalties.

Protect confidential information: To protect confidential information, you can limit its access to those who require it to carry out the obligations defined in the alliance agreement. Another safeguard is to agree upon and monitor specific standards for sharing, managing and guarding confidential information.

Define sharing agreements: Alliances are built on the premise of sharing resources such as data, intellectual property, competitive intelligence, and access to employees and customers. Sharing such resources creates a unique set of legal and business requirements that need to be included in an alliance agreement. Begin by taking an inventory of the resources that you plan to share so that they may be included.

Partner with competitors. Defining the rules around sharing in an alliance agreement is particularly important when forming an alliance with a competitor. For example, competitive partners in the airline industry establish rules around sharing routes, and competitive partners in the auto manufacturing industry develop detailed rules about sharing vehicle components. In fact, hyper-competitive partners often develop a “co-opetition” framework that recognizes two partners may effectively leverage an alliance for some product offerings or targeting some market segments while remaining fierce competitors in others.

Protect expertise and client information: Resources commonly shared during an alliance include human resources and customer data. As a result, there can be concerns that employees may work for the current or former alliance partner. To safeguard against this risk, include in an alliance agreement an employee non-solicitation clause where partners agree not to offer employment to the other partner’s employees during the term of the agreement or for a defined period after the conclusion of the alliance. A similar non-solicitation clause can be added so that partners cannot solicit each other’s clients.

Protect confidential information: To protect confidential information, you can limit its access to those who require it to carry out the obligations defined in the alliance agreement. Another safeguard is to agree upon and monitor specific standards for sharing, managing and guarding confidential information, especially during tax preparation in Encinitas.

Define post-alliance obligations: Whether an alliance is established for a specific, one- time event or it is intended to span several years, participants need to identify the conditions that would cause the partnership to end — either on friendly terms or not (e.g. because of non-performance). The more involved the alliance, the more important it is to consider post-alliance obligations to minimize any potential business disruption or damage to complex relationships (with customers, suppliers, manufacturers and/or distributors).

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What is Obamacare?

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Posted by Health News Watch on August 15, 2012 at 3:38 pm

medical collection agencyObamacare, officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), is arguably the president’s main achievement during his time in office, but few people understand what Obamacare actually does. This may be due to the bill’s unprecedented length and the healthcare industry’s purposefully complicated tactics to confuse customers, but there answers do exist.

The overarching theme of the PPACA is to make health care more affordable for all U.S. residents. From medical collections to drug production, it will have a large impact on every health-related aspect of our lives. Below we will attempt to breakdown the main parts of the  bill in simple language:

What the PPACA has already put into effect:

  • It forbids insurance companies from discriminating based on a disability.
  • It allows the Food and Drug Administration to approve more generic drugs (making for more competition in the market to
  • drive down prices)
  • It increases the rebates on drugs people get through Medicare (so drugs cost less)
  • It makes a “high-risk pool” for people with pre-existing conditions. Basically, this is a way to slowly ease into getting rid of
  • “pre-existing conditions” altogether.
  • It creates a new 10% tax on indoor tanning booths.
  • It will stop health insurance companies from denying coverage because a customer has hit a “lifetime limit”.
  • Bans “pre-existing conditions” for kids under the age of 19.
  • Forbids insurers from dropping customers while they are sick.
  • Extends Medicare to small, rural hospitals.

What it will put into effect in January 2014:

  • Ends the use of “pre-existing conditions.” Everyone will be charged the same regardless of their medical history.
  • People will be charged a fee if they can afford insurance, but remain uncovered.
  • Medicaid will be expanded to cover more people living below the poverty line.
  • Businesses with over 50 employees must offer health insurance to full-time employees, or pay a penalty.
  • Limits the annual deductible insurers can charge customers.
  • Establish health insurance exchanges and rebates for the lower and middle-class, basically making it so they have an easier
  • time getting affordable medical coverage.
  • Creates new taxes on pharmaceutical companies.
  • Creates new taxes on the purchase of medical devices.
  • Creates new tax on insurance companies based on their market share.

Obviously, there is much more to Obamacare than what is listed above, but this should provide a broad starting point for anyone wondering what will happen to their healthcare. More details need to be worked out, many programs need to be fined tuned, but significant changes are on the way and every medical collection agency and health provider is keeping a close eye on the developments as they come.

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How Can Invest Like Warren Buffett?

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Posted by Heather Aarons on July 12, 2012 at 11:16 am

Warren Buffett is considered one of the richest men in the world and the most successful investor of the 20th century. As a primary shareholder, chairmen and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway he has conducted very intelligent business and investment tactics that others want to learn from and copy.

There are several well-known Buffett strategies that will help any investor, businessmen, or regular tax payer looking to invest or when meeting with our tax experts like tax preparation Encinitas accountants.

A major investment strategy that Warren Buffett utilizes is a modification of the value investing approach that his mentor Benjamin Graham once used. Before buying a business, Warren looks to see if the business has earnings with an upward trend with consistent margins, the debt-to-equity ratio was low and if it was high he made sure that the company could repay their debt.

He also ensures that the return on equity (ROE) is consistent and more than 12%, the company retains earnings for growth, the company has a low maintenance cost of operations, they reinvest earnings in good business opportunities, and the company is able to adjust prices for inflation. Buffett does not hurry to invest in businesses. He will wait for market corrections or downturns to buy successful businesses at reasonable prices. Buffett is known for creating the term “economic moat” which means that he prefers to attain companies that have more competitive advantages over other businesses. As a result of  these investment strategies, Buffett has become a very wealthy and successful man who has earned billions of dollars.

To learn more about smart business planning and accounting visit this bookkeeping Encinitas website.

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How Can I Improve My Practice’s Billing Processes?

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Posted by Amanda Guerrero on June 26, 2012 at 12:14 pm

Like any other business, the success of a medical practice or healthcare facility depends largely on the capacity of its billing and collections staff to carry out medical accounts receivable processes in an accurate and efficient way. In order to streamline billing tasks for quicker returns and more effective medical revenue cycle management, it is necessary to get your entire staff on board.

Educate employees.

The first step to making sure that your billing processes are on track is educating staff members. Make sure that employees responsible for check-in, check-out, and scheduling are clear about which insurances your practice accepts. This way, patients won’t be surprised to find out later that their office visit wasn’t covered and will have to be paid out of pocket.

It is also important for employees who handle time-of-service payments to understand where to find co-pay collection amounts on benefits statements and insurance cards. When patients get undercharged, your billing staff gets left with extra work trying to collect money that should have been paid before the patient left the office.

Establish collection policies.

Collection policies aren’t meant just for patients. Your employees should know understand medical accounts receivable procedures and billing timeframes for contacting patients. You might want to mail statements out every 30 days, for example, and have staff members follow up with phone calls. After a set amount of time has lapsed without payment, consider sending the account to a collection agency.

Set approximate timeframes for performing certain functions.

To improve efficiency, set goals for your employees and let them know what you expect of them. If one person should be able to process ‘X’ amount of claims per hour, let them know. Be flexible if goals aren’t being met and understand that some tasks are more complex than others. However, if you notice a pattern with one employee continually failing to reach their goal, talk to them and find out what they can be doing differently.

To learn more about how accounts receivable management, click here.

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What to Look for When Outsourcing Medical Collections and Billing

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Posted by Amanda Guerrero on June 7, 2012 at 2:18 pm

Once you have made the decision to outsource your practice’s healthcare accounts receivable or medical collections, determining the best company to handle these processes most effectively can be hard work. Following are a few key questions to consider, ensuring that the company you choose to work with is a good match.

What are your practice’s needs? One of the advantages of outsourcing is that vendors can provide sufficient staff resources to get claims and billing tasks processed more quickly, regardless of employees being out sick or on vacation. Make sure that the vendor understands your practice’s needs and expectations and that they can deliver on promises made.

Will the vendor provide regular progress reports? Just because you choose to outsource certain administrative tasks, it doesn’t mean that you are going to let someone else have free reign without accountability. Ask your vendor for weekly or monthly reports so that you can track their progress and success rates. Keep in mind that it could be a couple of months before you start seeing significant improvement in your practice’s healthcare accounts receivable.

Will you have access to their system for monitoring? Whether you choose to outsource your entire medical collections department or just a few tasks, if the vendor is in contact with patients or oversees processes affecting your practice’s revenue, you should be able to access their system in order to check their progress. Experienced revenue cycle partners at AR Logix, for example, record all phone calls with patients and make the recordings available for quality assurance purposes.

Does the vendor have satisfied clients? Find out who the vendor has worked with in the past, check their references, and make sure that most (or all) of their customers have been happy with their services. Don’t just base your decision on the list of customers the vendor provides you with. Do some digging on your own to see if anyone has given them negative reviews online.

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When Should I Call a Tax Accountant?

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Posted by Heather Aarons on June 5, 2012 at 10:15 am

When filing taxes become too complicated and arduous, it’s time to call in a good tax accountant.  However, it is still important to keep records and maintain a system in order to prevent tax time from being stressful.

The process of filing tax returns requires a lot of bookkeeping and receipt collection and everyone has their own system for keeping records. Sometimes, however, we may find ourselves unable to keep up with it all, especially small business owners. In such cases, Vista CA accounting specialists, for example, help small business owners with tasks such as inputting transactional data, providing financial statements, paying bills, invoicing, managing cash flow, and analyzing contracts and policies, so you can rest assured that all these important matters are handled.

If you are not in need of bookkeeping services, you can rely on monthly bank statements and credit card receipts, which are easy to follow and make filing time more easy.  Also, keeping a date book with expenditures whether they be volunteer miles driven, cash donations for various local charities or medical expenses that can add up to a deduction; all these and more can be easily overlooked.  The more organized you are at keeping good monthly records and receipts the easier it is at filing time.

Tax accountants provide you with worksheets to categorize and total your expenditures.  They simply need to see the worksheets and copies of your year-end investment statements and your W-2 income forms that are submitted by your employer in late January.  Even just a single meeting with your tax accountant may suffice to finalize your filing and you will soon learn how much you owe or get back from the IRS.  Let’s hope it’s a refund.

To learn more about meeting with an accountant visit this tax preparation Encinitas website.

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How Can Patients Avoid Unnecessary Medical Fees?

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Posted by Amanda Guerrero on May 15, 2012 at 2:52 pm

To keep from dealing with aggressive or mean-spirited collectors, uninsured patients often avoid setting foot in medical facilities at all costs. A patient that can’t afford a doctor’s visit, for example, might let a cold go untreated until they suddenly find themselves with full-blown pneumonia. By then, the emergency room is their only option, and the cost of a hospital stay will far exceed their budget. Luckily, most hospitals – and an increasing number of private practices – count on medical accounts receivable solutions to help patients repay their medical bills without breaking the bank. But how can patients be sure that what they are paying for is right?

To avoid paying for unnecessary services or facility fees, patients should:

Ask whether the service is necessary. If your doctor suggests surgery or an expensive test, ask if there are any other cost effective alternatives. Doctors sometimes order the same procedures out of habit but may be familiar with other, less expensive treatments that are just as effective. Find out what the risks and benefits are of each treatment plan in order to make a more informed decision.

Ask for the procedure’s CPT code ahead of time. If you know which CPT codes your provider will be billing your insurance company for, you can do some investigating and find out whether certain facilities charge less for the same services. Though your insurance company will be the best source of information, websites such as fairhealthconsumer.org can help patients estimate local medical expenses.

Ask for an itemized list of charges. If you have ever been hospitalized, you are more than likely familiar with the final bill you receive after being discharged. You usually get a bill with a big number and little explanation. But what exactly do your $10,000 hospital fees include? Patients often report being charged more than once for the same test, or even being billed for unnecessary procedures. Some women, in fact, have mentioned being billed for pregnancy tests, even after telling doctors that they are pregnant. If you have a full description of all charges, you can make sure that you aren’t getting billed even a penny more than you should.

Keep in mind that medical facilities which employ medical accounts receivable solutions generally work with patients to provide cash discounts and debt repayment plans. Talk to your healthcare provider to learn more about revenue cycle management education and medical collections resources.

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Outsourcing ICD-10 Tasks for an Easier Transition

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Posted by Amanda Guerrero on April 12, 2012 at 8:32 am

The decision to outsource any of your medical practice’s operations can be a difficult one to make. Whether you’re considering customer service, information technology, healthcare collections training, or licensing services, there are many advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing. With the new ICD-10 guidelines and conversion just around the corner, now is a good time to start thinking about transferring some burdensome administrative tasks over to outside professionals with better resources.

ICD-10 is going to require a large amount of changes and training, and most practices aren’t as prepared as they should be. While implementing the new codes will surely improve quality of care and efficiency (although perhaps not in the short-term), the increase in procedure codes alone is enough to make healthcare professionals nervous. Since anything other than a smooth transition could be disastrous, it is critical for doctors to plan ahead. One way to do so is by outsourcing elements of the ICD-10 conversion to third-party professionals.

First, find out how prepared your practice is for ICD-10 and how likely it is to succeed after the transition. For this step, look to a third party. Someone who is detached from the organization will provide a clearer perspective on the roles of each employee, as well as how your practice functions as a whole. In addition, it is important to consider how the new codes will affect medical collections for both patients and providers. Patients, on the one hand, will need to worry about how ICD-10 changes will impact the amount they pay on insurance claims. Meanwhile, billing or practice managers will need to know if selecting one code over another similar one will affect payment amounts in a significant way.

Training is perhaps the most important step and one area that is best left in the hands of a third-party professional. Practice managers or billing staff must be trained on all the details of the new system, as well as nurses, doctors, and other staff members that will come into contact with diagnosis codes. Special emphasis should be given to codes that directly affect your specialty, and administrators should outline the system the practice will follow to adopt the changes. For training, providers should consider timing, as employees are likely forget information if they learn it too long before they start using it. On the other hand, if new coding processes are taught too late, trying to internalize so much information in a hurry will create confusion and lead to unnecessary mistakes.

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Understanding Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management

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Posted by Amanda Guerrero on April 2, 2012 at 9:15 am

Despite its daunting name, healthcare revenue cycle management refers to the process through which payment is provided for rendered medical services, and its aim is for physicians to get paid in a timely fashion. The cycle begins when a patient calls to schedule an appointment and ends after they have received medical attention and paid their bill in full.

Many clinics lack the resources to request insurance information during the patient’s initial call, though it should be the first step in a successful revenue cycle management plan. By doing so, staff can run insurance information before the visit and find out whether the patient is covered, what services their plan covers, and what their co-pay is. If there are any discrepancies, such as the patient’s policy having expired, it’s best to catch it early on so that the patient can be made aware before the appointment date. This also benefits healthcare providers in that they can postpone the appointment until discrepancies are rectified, or they can arrange alternate payment options with the patient beforehand. Clinics may choose to outsource this task to outside professionals, leaving staff to worry about other duties that affect patient care.

Since obtaining partial or incorrect insurance information will throw off any subsequent steps in the revenue cycle, it is important to get things right the first time. The second step involves posting charges with their corresponding diagnoses codes. This means that it is crucial for CPT and ICD codes to be entered correctly. While it is common practice for some clinics to hold their charge slips a few days before posting them in order to ensure that there are no missing charges, doing so creates a delay in final billing and is highly discouraged. Instead, electronic claim submission and remittance can enhance the revenue cycle process, allowing staff resources to be used elsewhere.

If carried out correctly, a good healthcare revenue cycle management process can help maximize profits and office efficiency by leaving billing issues to the experts.

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Managing Medical Debt With Help From Medical Accounts Receivable

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Posted by Amanda Guerrero on March 21, 2012 at 9:15 am

Healthcare costs are inevitable and everybody has them, though some people have a lesser financial capacity than others. Patients who are uninsured or going through financial difficulties, however, shouldn’t feel discouraged. More often than not, talking to your doctor’s medical accounts receivable department can open up a variety of options to help you pay your medical bills in a more manageable way.

Arrange a Payment Plan: When medical bills start piling up, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel the need to ignore them. Instead of shrugging the bills off and giving up, talk directly to your healthcare provider about working out a payment plan. Be proactive and contact your doctor as soon as you receive the bill, as they are usually more open to working with patients who show a willingness to pay. Once you have agreed on a payment schedule, try your best not to break it, otherwise your provider’s accounts receivable department may not be as accommodating next time.

Ask About Lump Sum Discounts: If you offer to pay your bill in full, many doctors will agree to reduce your total payment amount. This is especially true if you offer to pay in cash. Lump sum payments ensure the provider will at least break even and means one less patient to keep behind over unpaid bills.

Look into Charity Care Eligibility: Most hospitals and healthcare practices have scoring models to identify patients who are eligible for financial assistance or charity care. If you think you might meet the requirements for charity assistance, ask your provider for help. If possible, do this before services are rendered, and be prepared to show proof of income and hardship.

Appeal Denied Claims: If your insurance provider denies a medical claim, make sure the denial is valid; otherwise, you can appeal it. If you’re not sure why a claim was denied, talk to your provider’s medical accounts receivable department to find out why and what your options are.

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