Check Your Tax Withholding Now that we are in the last quarter of 2021, now is a good time to check tax withholding. Life brings constant changes to individual financial situations. Events like marriage, divorce, a new child or home purchase can all be reasons to adjust withholding. The convenient Tax Withholding Estimator, also available in Spanish, will help you determine if you have too much withheld and how to make an adjustment
Don’t let Bad Business Practices Undermine Your Group Your medical practice or group works hard to settle on a sound marketing plan and your physicians pride themselves on their clinical reputations. Yet common, often overlooked business practices often undermine these positives and trash your group’s reputation with referrers and local businesspeople. In fact, you’d be surprised how word gets around — particularly in smaller communities — about bad practices your
September 2021 Edition of the Physician Advocate We head into Fall with the latest from the world of physician practices and taxes. Get caught up on the latest EHR optimization tips, read this reminder to evaluate your new doctor associate and then ask yourself if you are dumping bad data into your claims. Be sure to check out my latest blogs from September. Valuation of a Medical Practice: Art or Science Home
Ransomware Resources for HIPAA Regulated Entities The HHS Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is sharing the following information to ensure that HIPAA regulated entities are aware of the resources available to assist in preventing, detecting, and mitigating breaches of unsecured protected health information caused by hacking and ransomware. HHS Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center Threat Briefs Sector and Threat Briefs January 28, 2021 – ATTACK for Emotet March 12, 2021
Optimization Tips Do you have a love-hate relationship with your electronic health record (EHR) software? Well, sometimes getting over the hump – as they say- means tailoring it to your needs. Whatever your specialty, you need an EHR workflow that can best help you treat your patients. Here are some great tips I found from the Texas Medical Association. Work closely with your EHR vendor Establish a relationship that allows
Physician Practice Revenue Growth Medical practices today are essentially operating in a new environment. Today there are significant pressures – and challenges – to increase physician practice revenue growth and at least maintain a bottom line profit. We all know (or should know by now) where these pressures are coming from. All told, these and market changes have forced medical practices to devise and undertake new initiatives in an effort
Terminating an Employed Physician The Fisher Phillips law firm has provided excellent steps if and when you ever have to to terminate an employed physician. For those of us who’s client based is only physician medical practices, it is always unpleasant when a medical practice to has to terminate an employed physician, but it is sometimes necessary. Perhaps the physician has committed serious policy violations or lost an insurance contract,
August 2021 Edition of the Physician Advocate The last month of summer was a busy one! As we head into Autumn, these important topics are on our mind: The Monetary Life of Physicians – which contains observations from my years of working with physicians; getting control over the revenue cycle and why responses to requests for medical records should be prompt. Featured Blogs for the August 2021 Newsletter 24 Observations
Home Sale Gain Exclusion The $250,000 ($500,000, if married) home sale gain exclusion break is one of the great tax-saving opportunities. Unmarried homeowners can potentially exclude gains up to $250,000, and married homeowners can potentially exclude up to $500,000. You as the seller need not complete any special tax form to take advantage. To take full advantage of the principal residence gain exclusion break, you must pass two tests: the ownership test
Medical Practice Valuation What is medical practice worth? It depends. And once you understand this fact, you can then begin to concentrate on how to get to the answer and an appropriate medical practice valuation. There is a great misunderstanding in the medical community as to what constitutes the value of a medical practice. Purchasers often think it is valued based on what they plan to bring to the table.
Rock Star Employees Your physician practice rock star employees need some love. Here’s how to get started. Praise Them For a long time, the highest praise I could offer, in my mind, was a paycheck. Employees get paid every two weeks, so why do I have to say more? That mind-set led to lots of turnover. Praise is free. It’s good for them, and it’s good for you. Loosen up
Physician Compliance Concerns Every word written or spoken in connection with a physician practice presents the potential for risk. Based on my experiences, the following are two areas of physician compliance concerns when it comes to practice communications. Physician Compliance Issue: Text messages Smartphones, while convenient, have caused countless compliance issues. Communications as seemingly private and innocuous as a text message present a significant risk, as law enforcement can easily obtain