Healthcare

Physician Practices

Practice Services

The Healthcare Consulting Group, a division of Warren, Averett, Kimbrough and Marino, LLC, has developed a niche in assisting physicians with the business aspect of their practice. With the combined knowledge and experience of our Healthcare Consulting Group, we can provide financial and accounting guidance, as well as direction in managing the daily operations of a physician practice. Some of our specialized services for healthcare practices include:

Physician Practice Set-Up

As part of the physician practice set-up function, we can provide a “turn-key” operation including:

• Prepare the practice’s cash flow projections and expense/operating cost projections
• Obtain all required state and federal tax identification numbers
• Negotiate bank loan(s)
• Obtain and complete provider applications
• Contact the state compensation insurance commission for guidelines and forms regarding treatment of workers’ compensation patients
• Order copies of CPT-4 and ICD-9 books
• Prepare the employee Policy and Procedures handbook
• Coordinate the purchase of a medical records system
• Implement accounts payable, payroll, and bookkeeping systems
• Retain an insurance agent and obtain all practice-related business insurance
• Ensure malpractice premiums do not lapse
• Determine the practice fee schedule
• Interview and hire staff
• Apply for a state unemployment tax number and other payroll related identification numbers
• Publish an announcement in the local newspaper and in other local periodicals.
  Send announcements to other physicians and hospitals
• Plan an open house/reception
• Set physician salary and calculate withholdings.

The Healthcare Consulting Group has been approved to provide the following seminars:

• Risk Management Issues in Stark Laws and Physician Compensation
• Risk Management: Recommendations for Voluntary Physician Practice Compliance Plans

Practice Assessments

• Evaluate employee performance and efficiency in comparison to "best practices" we have observed in our client work, our medical practice management round tables, and our own personal practice management experiences. Salaries are also compared with our biannual salary & survey benefits
• Review of key financial indicators and comparison of same to industry standards
• Review office design, layout and atmosphere, assessing each for functionality, appropriateness and maximum efficiency
• Review office processes to evaluate patient flow, data capture, physician and staff efficiency, and potential exposure to liability
• General overview for compliance with regulations applicable to the medical practice, i.e. E/M coding guidelines, Stark/Stark II compliance, code steering
• Observe stated and actual separation of duties. Recommend changes in tasks to achieve optimum safety of revenue and encourage conformity with designed organizational plan
• Propose methods to collect past due accounts receivable, reduce amounts of delinquent accounts, establish staff goals and incentives for improving collection rates

Revenue review

• Review payer mix and initiate strategic planning dialogue on ways to improve profitability by "enriching" the mix
• Analyze evaluation and management codes for correctness and consistency
• Identify and eliminate causes of rejected charges and develop an expedited system for resubmission
• Detailed examination of the basis of revenue, your fee schedule
• Trace the flow of charges from initial encounter, charge, billing and ultimate collection, monitoring for areas where income could be lessened by poor system design or lack of adherence to a valid system