A normal item when I get asked to review a consultant’s invoicing process is the potential for weakness in the area of records on his/her part.
Carrier bags & Cardboard Boxes
Sometimes, I’m presented with a carrier bag full of invoices, remittances, and receipts. My favourite though remains the cardboard box stuffed full of pieces of paper and being advised that’s the filing system. Close examination of the pieces of paper in the cardboard box suggested they were
My favourite though remains the cardboard box stuffed full of pieces of paper and being told that’s the filing system. Close examination of the pieces of paper in the cardboard box suggested they were
Close examination of the pieces of paper in the cardboard box suggested they were invoiced. Most did not have an invoice number on them. Indeed the majority did not actually have the word INVOICE printed on them either.
Here comes the accident
That can be a problem when I come to reconcile payments against such payments. IF they’ve been paid at all. That is important because it is difficult to contact an insurance company and discuss invoices for one individual patient if the invoice does not show an invoice number. In
In fact, the only way you can tell them apart is if the values are different and they are on different dates.
It’s always best to have a unique reference number on an invoice i.e. an invoice number and a date.
Then the hard part starts as you begin to look at what is or is not on the invoice and get a feel for what was likely to be paid anyway and what was likely to be rejected due to total lack of detail.
Normally this is followed by a request to see clinic lists and the process of obtaining the right data off the clinic list for submission to the insurance company.
There is also an additional cost to not keeping accurate records. When it comes to tax time, its going to take a lot longer – and thereby cost much more – for your accountant to do the necessary computations. At worse you could end up paying too much tax.
All because records aren’t kept correctly.
Please keep accurate records if only because it means you stand a much higher chance of being paid!
pete@medicalhealthcaremanagement.co.uk