There’s a reason medical billing is offered as its own course of study. Billing patients correctly is a monumental task. Dealing with different insurance companies, waiting for reimbursement, and patients who don’t pay in a timely manner all complicate the already intense prospect of running a business. Bookkeeping can suck your time away – time better spent with patients. Unless you want to spend hours every day on paperwork, your chiropractic business needs a professional bookkeeper.
What can a bookkeeper do for your chiropractic practice?
1. Reconcile financial records
Some expenses of operating your business are fixed from month to month like office rent and insurance. Most are variable like payroll, utilities, and supplies. Keeping up with expenses requires vigilance and time that you probably don’t have.
2. Help you make accurate business decisions
If you let the receipts pile up without recording them, you could be making business decisions based on incorrect financials. Also with a waiting time for reimbursement from insurance companies, your statements might not reflect your income. You are typically doing work now and getting paid for it months down the road. Some of the factors that can influence your decisions are:
- What are your largest expenses and can those be better managed?
- Money in the bank does not accurately reflect profit and loss. Know what money is earmarked for expenses.
- Managing client flow. Is the number of new patients enough to replace outgoing patients? Do you have enough long-term patients to sustain your practice? Are clients leaving because they are healed or for other reasons?
- Keeping financials current so you can spot inconsistencies before they become problems.
3. Prevent bookkeeping errors
You may be a great chiropractor and only an OK bookkeeper, but do you want less than the best for your business? Would your patients want only an OK chiropractor to work on them? A professional bookkeeper can help you avoid rookie mistakes:
- Do you allow your business and personal finances to commingle?
- Do you use basic spreadsheets instead of accounting software?
- Do you rely on your bank statement to keep track of your books for you?
Once you start making any of the above errors, it can lead to months of incorrect financials, slow recovery, overdrafts, debt, fines, and more.
4. Increase your profit
Bookkeepers can identify expenditure waste and help you increase your profit. Having someone review your expenses analytically is worth every penny. You may be overpaying a vendor simply because you don’t have time to get bids. You may be over-ordering supplies. If you are replacing tables or equipment more often than you should, you may need to change the quality of the products you use. Are you managing employee time effectively? Getting these expenditures under control can have a big impact on your bottom line.
5. Improve productivity and time management
Hiring a bookkeeper is a great addition to your medical-service business. You’ll find that you have more time to take on more patients and/or expand the practice. More patients mean that you can hire additional office staff to take some admin responsibilities off your plate.
You’ll save money by increasing productivity. If you and your staff aren’t cobbling together the books in your spare time, there will be fewer billable hours. This can offset the cost of a bookkeeper who can complete the tasks much more quickly and efficiently.
You may be worried about the cost of hiring a bookkeeper and that you can’t afford to have another person on the payroll. Outsourcing an accounting firm is an easy solution. You’ll only pay for the hours you need and you’ll have a whole team of people at your disposal. You get the benefit of experts in a variety of accounting areas under one roof. Let JADDE Financial Solutions take a crack at your books. We are small business specialists who understand the needs of a chiropractic office.
