End Of Year Checklist For Medical Practice Owners
Another year has come and gone. It’s time to celebrate the accomplishments of the past year and look at ways to improve the upcoming year. However, throughout all the holiday parties, you need to make time to complete the checklist that I do every end of year for my medical practice.
The checklist helps me ensure that I keep an eye over the business large picture. I like to do it right at the end of the year so I can also set a plan for the upcoming year. Plus, when I am doing my taxes, it is hard for me to focus on anything else beyond collecting all the data for my taxes. I would recommend you take the time to go through your own checklist.
Take A Break
Owning a business is work, often around the clock. In December I make sure that I take some time to take a little R&R. Holidays are stressful and medical practices are flooded in December with patients. Everyone needs a breather and refresher. You have worked hard, take some time off to celebrate with friends or family.
Know Your Numbers
Do you know important number?
- Do you know what your profit and loss was?
- How have your employees have been performing?
- How was spending compared to last year?
- What was the year over year change in spending in areas like advertising?
- How much money will be left in the account going into January 1st?
- 80/20 Rule. Where did 80 % of your income come from and can you either maximize this or decrease the 20% that is not making you as much money per time invested.
A really big one is….How was your successful collection rate? Let’s say you bill out at 200% Medicare. If you billed 4 million dollars, then if you collected 100% of the time you would collect $2 million assuming your contracts are all at exactly 100% Medicare. If you only collected 1.5 million dollars, then your collections rate is 1.5 / 2 = 0.75 (75%). A collection rate of anything less than 90% is not good in my opinion and needs to be investigated.
When making an end of year checklist for your medical practice, knowing your numbers is one of the most important factors for the health of your business.
Take Inventory
At the end of year, my accountant asks for consumable items that we currently have. For us, this means vaccines.
What is the dollar amount of vaccines sitting in my refrigerator at end of day December 31st? I document this value plus the value of other meaningful consumable items on hand at end of year.
For you this might be vials of Botox. Whatever it is that you pre-bought for the following year, get an inventory and write that number down. Then give that number to your accountant for tax time.
Calculate Miles Driven
I currently calculate miles driven for work monthly. Keep in mind that to take the IRS deduction you can only include miles driven between two different offices. NOT the drive from your home to work.
To make things slightly more difficult, the IRS changed the rate for milage pay mid-year. Starting 7/2/2022 that rate 62.5 cents per mild driven, up from 58.5. So, this year you will need to give your accountant millage and dates to make sure you are getting the right reimbursement depending on the month.
Since I only drive between two locations, I just use google maps miles as my distance driven. Then multiply this by the number of trips I made.
Check For Payroll Corrections
Your employees might have moved. Some may have gotten married. Make sure to send out an email to remind your employees to update their info with the company ASAP.
As a business owner you will have to mail out W-2 forms to your employees by January 31st. If you use QuickBooks, then this will automatically be sent out for you (usually) on January 31st. SO, make sure the home addresses are up to date.
Define Goals For The Next Year
I talked about a pro forma in previous posts, which is more intense than a back of the napkin business plan but not as intense as a business plan.
For my checklist for my medical practice, I write down what type of goals do I have for the following year.
My goals for 2023:
- Open another location
- Hire another doctor
- Cross 2.5 million in gross revenue for fiscal year 2023
- Offload more day to day running the business function to manager
- Focus more on Blogging/Vlogging
End Of Year Performance Review
In any checklist for an end of year medical practice, you should make sure that you are doing annual employee reviews.
The employees who are lagging behind need to be given a chance to improve. However, this is also a good time to get a pulse on employees that you have maybe neglected during the rest of the year.
Not really checking into time sheets for lunch breaks? Now is a good time to review those breaks.
Automation For Your Practice
At least once a year you need to take a step back and look at your practice from a high level. What can you automate in your practice?
Things that should be automated:
- Check in forms
- Reminders for appointments
- Eligibility requirements
- Patient payment requests
- Metrics (I have it set up so that weekly I get an email in excel format for our metrics)
Bonuses
We usually give our staff about 1 week of pay for those who have been with us longer than 6 months for the Christmas holidays. Make sure you treat your support staff well and they will most likely treat you well in return.
Is there anything else that you end up doing for your end of year checklist?
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