Ensuring Cash Accountability in Medical Practice: Three Key Strategies
The hard part is over: You’ve got the dough. Now you’ve just got to keep track of it. Here are three ways to keep from losing your cash and losing your head.
Know your role. Some offices assign specific duties to specific people. If you are a check-in person and you are asked to hand any copays over to the check-out person for entry into the system and organization, then do that. This may sound obvious, but by keeping to your duties and following directions, you can avoid a mix-up or a misplaced copay.
Consider balancing more than once a day. For example, you might balance copays twice a day -- once after the morning session and then at the end of the day. Not only does this break up the day a little, but by the end of the day, there might have been two different people at the front desk. Balancing the copays you have collected with your system as shifts change or at breaking points in the day helps to ensure accountability for everyone involved.
Keep a record of who checks in or checks out whom. Some practices have a check-and-balance system for each person involved by maintaining an audit trail of who checked which patients in. So at the end of the day, if there is $5 missing, the responsible person can find it. Nothing should proceed to the billing office without the copays balancing, so you can make sure you’ve captured every copay.
REED TINSLEY, CPA can help your medical practice implement efficient cash handling procedures and internal controls.
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