Into Thin Air: Is this YOUR Practice?
The following cases are true, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent. You may recognize your practice here, and if so, shame, shame, shame!
Case 1: The Absentee Owner. At this practice, the physician owner (in solo practice) never reviews the books. The book keeper goes in once per year and balances the books. The physician never looks at anyreports to see where his money comes from or where it goes. “I have plenty of money, so I don’t really care,” he says.
Case 2: Irreconcilable Differences. At this practice nothing is ever reconciled. There are over two years worth of bank statements, credit card statements and random receipts that have never been entered in to the books. The physician owner, again in solo practice, wonders if a book keeper and/or a practice manager would be helpful. Time will tell if the practice keeps it’s doors open!
Case 3: The IRS is on line 1. Here, mail is allowed to pile up, unopened, with the philosphy of “if I don’t open it, it can’t hurt me!” Several of the envelopes contained inquiries into way ward payroll payments, from friendly IRS agents.
Case 4: No review of systems. Here, there is absolutely no review of systems, actually no system at all! Bills, payments, notices, and other random paperwork are placed in piles, with out any way to manage them. There are no formalized ways of doing things,and so things just don’t get done, leading to financial meltdown.
If this is you and your practice–get help! Stage an intervention! You work too hard to become another case in the PookieMD casebook of mismanaged practices.
