Financial Pitfalls to Avoid When Running a Medical Practice

First Bank’s Travis Bailey assists a variety of small businesses, including medical and dental offices, with their financial needs. We recently spoke to him to learn about avoiding three of the biggest financial challenges a medical or dental practice might face.

1.     Payment Delays

Insurance payments, Medicare payments – medical practices can get into situations where these are delayed. That can have a big impact on a business’s ability to function. First Bank can help with a line of credit so a medical practice can continue to pay its bills. The line of credit can move up or down, expanding or contracting throughout the year as the financial picture changes and more (or fewer) bills are paid on time.

2.     Being at the Mercy of a Landlord

We try to coach medical clients about the importance of owner-occupied real estate.  Your business needs a physical location, so you have to start saving the capital to be able to purchase your real estate. You don’t want your company to be subject to the whims of your landlord – after all, if you have to move, that could mean losing customers along the way.

3.     Failing to Manage Time and Expenses

The two go hand-in-hand. Since doctors are usually pressed for time, one thing that can fall by the wayside is expense management. That means practices can end up spending more than they need to on office supplies. Doctors typically don’t go into medicine or dentistry in order to deal with financial paperwork or office logistics, but those things can have a big impact on a business.

Two time-savers for medical practices are employee direct deposit and Remote Deposit Capture, both of which eliminate trips to the bank. Employee direct deposit ensures that employee paychecks go right into their accounts, and Remote Deposit Capture allows businesses to make check deposits from their office.