The cost of dealing with paper in the medical industry is becoming a huge problem that's still slow to change. You can find considerable evidence of how high the percentages are in the paperwork still being used in medical practice accounting (More than 85% of SMB workflows have a paper based step). Dealing with this only takes away time from Doctors or Practice Managers who generically are interested in growing their business (money, patients, quality of service etc) reputation with patients.
More risky, though, is a potential reconciliation nightmare due to excessive transaction paperwork. Based on the sheer volume of documents your accounting team needs to sort through, a mistake is almost inevitable.
When a discrepancy occurs in reconciling bank statements with your practice management software, it easily creates a ripple effect. Not only could it harm your reputation with patients, but it's going to take considerable downtime to locate a problem.
Finding the source of a mistake on paper could become virtually impossible, especially if you're not properly filing documents. The only solution to this is a digital one with tools letting you access account data at will and organizing it efficiently.
More so, this digital solution could provide real-time information so you see the bigger picture.
The Importance in Having a Real-Time Feed
Many medical analysts note how disconnected medical facilities are with no centralized or informed processes. They note real-time analytics solve this problem immediately because it takes information from various sources and places it in one database to access anywhere.
Your own medical practice needs a platform providing a real-time feed with revenue and balance sheet data. With numerous departments in your facility, it can turn chaotic when every financial sheet becomes entered manually.
Through an automated platform, all of this information gets entered into a central database to check on in real-time. For your accounting team, this is essential to scope out mistakes before final reconciliation takes place.
Having all your financial information in one feed is akin to social media and having the world in one stream. You'll save yourself hours of trouble later trying to hunt down a discrepancy.
Daily Reconciliation
Wouldn't it be great to reconcile your income statements with your bank on a daily basis? Not too long ago, this wasn't possible, and far too many medical establishments still wait and do this by manual data entry. They only do this because they're stuck in a rut doing it the same way for so many years.
If you're still doing the same, you're undoubtedly experiencing some errors, even if you think that's a natural process.
Doing daily electronic reconciliation with your bank, you'll be assured mistakes won't get past you. It's important to do this with all income sources so you don't wait weeks or months to discover which patients, paid what doctor and how many invoices are outstanding.
Using a Cloud Accounting for Reconciliation
Keeping on top of your cash flow is essential for the survival of your medical practice. Relying strictly on paperwork to do this not only gives headaches to your accounting team, it could place your entire facility in financial jeopardy.
Matching financial records for reconciliation truly does become a nightmare when trying to line up bank statements with what's in your records. Using cloud accounting, though, you'll be able to access financial information 24/7, which is important if you work from multiple locations.
What would happen if you received a call about a reconciliation discrepancy while traveling overseas for business? By simply accessing a dashboard on your mobile device, you'll match your financial records with deposit records in your bank's feed.
Being able to take care of a financial error while away from your facility ultimately gives you peace of mind in knowing you'll keep your practice solvent.
Contact us at Surgical Partners for a paperless consultation. We've created a digital platform that allows these features above and also have a few other tricks up our sleeve to help you save time.
