NAHC Welcomes Invoice Factoring Firm as a First-Time Exhibitor: PRN Funding to Give Away an iPad2

PRN Funding, LLC is set to exhibit at the National Association for Home Care & Hospice’s 30th Annual Convention at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino next month. This is the first time the home care factoring firm will be exhibiting, and it’s excited to speak with private duty home care agency owners about the benefits of accounts receivable financing.

President, Phil Cohen, Marketing Manager, Nikki Flores, and Office Manager, Stephanie Chmielecki, will be in booth #1054 October 2-4 speaking with home care business owners about how they can turn their Medicaid receivables into cash immediately through private duty care invoice factoring.

In addition to learning about invoice funding options, all attendees are invited to stop by booth #1054 and enter PRN Funding’s drawing to win an iPad2. There are two ways to enter PRN Funding’s iPad2 raffle: (1) Bring the postcard that was mailed prior to the conference directly to the booth or (2) Fill out an entry form. On the last day of the conference, PRN Funding will announce the winner.

With years of experience in healthcare industry, PRN Funding has a precise understanding of the unique challenges within the private duty and home care industries. PRN Funding offers financial resources to these companies by purchasing their accounts receivable–a process known as ‘factoring’, which provides the cash needed to sustain and grow a healthcare business.

Fraud Allegations Surrounding Medical Billing Company: JJ&R to Pay Millions

The medical billing factoring and medical coding invoice funding specialists at PRN Funding came across an interesting article that we believe is important to share with our Medical Billing and Medical Coding readers. We summarized the article below. You can read the article in its entirety on HealthLeadersMedia.com, Ca Medical Biller to Pay $4.6M to Settle Fraud Allegations.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Janzen, Johnston & Rockwell Emergency Medicine Management Services Inc. inflated claims that it had coded on behalf of emergency room physicians in Louisiana and California, and as a result of the fraud allegations, JJ&R agreed to pay the federal government $4.6 million.

From approximately 2000 through 2007, JJ&R used a coding formula that tended to generate claims for a marginally higher level of evaluation and management service than physicians had actually provided. In addition, JJ&R allegedly often failed to comply with Medicare’s coding rules governing claims for teaching physicians, resulting in claims that were not properly payable.

Nurse Staffing – Time for a Change in Thinking

There was another interesting article from HealthLeaders Media that the nurse staffing factoring specialists at PRN Funding felt would be beneficial for our nurse staffing friends to read. Entitled Nurse Staffing Costs Must Be Weighed Against the Cost of Errors, the article author believes that hospital executives need to pay closer attention to studies that show how nurse staffing affects a hospital’s overall performance and base staffing decisions on those findings.

Kathy Douglas, MHA, RN, president of the Institute for Staffing Excellence and Innovation, CNO of API Healthcare, and a board member of the journal Nursing Economic$ was quoted in the article saying: “Staffing costs sit in one part of the budget, so we think of the results there. Then the cost of errors sits in another part of the budget. If I could say one thing to healthcare executives it is to make staffing a top strategic priority in your organization. If you look at top priorities-LOS, safety, quality-all of these things have direct links to staffing.”

Moreover, Douglas gave an example of looking at things from a bigger perspective. She said that some hospitals that have cut back on staffing may not notice that it is overusing overtime and it might not notice that there’s a relationship between the overtime and the number if infections on a unit.

Study Shows Temp ER Nurses Could Be a Safety Threat to Patients

The nurse staffing factoring specialists at PRN Funding came across a piece of research that we believe is important to share with our Nurse Staffing Industry readers.  Due to the perceived credibility of the source of the study it is imperative that any company that provides supplemental medical staffing be aware of the study and prepared to address the underlying issues.

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine announced new research showing that temporary ER nurses may inadvertently be a threat to the patients they serve. Specifically, the study found that temporary nurses were twice as likely as permanent employed nurses to have medication errors in the hectic and fast-paced emergency room environment.

Although the studyimplicated temporary nurses, the authors stressed that temp ER nurses are not the only ones to blame for these shortcomings. The authors cited various reasons for ER errors, including the fact that many hospitals don’t give temporary nurses the same level of consideration and training as they do for their permanent staff.

Click here to read the official press release: Temporary ER Staff Poses Increased Safety Risk to Patients.

ACCIM Plans to Certify Medical Scribes

Medical scribe training and accreditation programs have been popping up much more frequently, as the demand for up-to-date EMRs continues to climb. The American College of Clinical Information Managers (ACCIM) has plans to begin a national accreditation program for medical scribes. The ACCIM’s medical scribe program will be carried out online with a certification exam at the conclusion. In addition, the non-for-profit organization will continue to provide resources to the public and scribe programs by following hospital trends and providing information with respect to statements by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as well as The Joint Commission as they relate to the industry.

More importantly, scribe programs that don’t consistently apply and maintain the minimum standards set forth in the ACCIM’s accreditation program will not be considered certified.

Click here for more information on New Group Seeks to Certify Medical Scribes.

8 Things to Love About Speech Recognition Technology Editing

Just in case our medical transcription readers missed it, the July issue of Plexus Magazine had a little write-up about SRT editing, entitled: Eight Things to Love about SRT Editing. The medical transcription factoring specialists at The Factoring Blog re-printed them below:

  1. The natural language processors is sometimes better at deciphering accents compared to the human ear. As long as sound quality is god, ESL dictators are usually easier to edit compared the typing.
  2. For slower typists, high gains in production through editing may be possible.
  3. With practice, most transcriptionists can becomes successful medical editors within three months.
  4. Back-end editing can keep costs to the client low, and the client will less likely consider alternative means of documentation thatseek to remove transcriptionists and editors form the equation.
  5. Less wear and tear ib tge hands, wrists, and shoulders; this is further minimized with utilizing a word expander to do the editing.
  6. Editing can actually be a wonderful learning tool. Often speech recognition already knows a term the MT has not yet been exposed to. Research can then confirm if SR was right. It can also help the MT learn a lot of the ESL accents. Seeing the typed word and comparing it to the voice file can help MTs learn how specific accents are likely to pronounce certain words.
  7. Transcribing is limited by how fast your fingers can move. There is only so fast one will ever get transcribing once the expander is being fully utilized. With SR, you can teach your expander to do more of the work.
  8. For some it is easier to catch SRs mistake’s than it is to catch your own. After a point, you can almost pick out the errors at a glance. Over time your brain becomes trained to pick these things out of the document quickly.

Three Reasons Why Allied Health Staffing Agencies Should Factor Their Invoices

Although invoice factoring is a great alternative funding option for any type of business, it’s an especially good allied health agency financing choice for agencies that staff temporary professionals in hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. In fact, selling invoices to a factor allows allied health staffing agencies to get paid quicker without going into additional debt. Furthermore, agency owners who factor their invoices will have enough liquid capital on hand to make weekly payroll and keep up with payroll tax obligations. Still not convinced? Check out the Three Reasons Why Allied Health Staffing Agencies Should Factor Their Invoices:

Reason #1: Stop Waiting to be Paid.
Instead of waiting 30, 60 or even 90 days to receive payment staffing in allied health professionals at a medical facility, temporary staffing agency owners can sell their invoices to a factor and receive cash within 24 hours of issuing an invoice. All a factoring firm needs to advance cash is a copy of the invoice and proof that the employees worked the shifts listed on the invoice. This is easily accomplished by supplying copies of signed time sheets.

Reason #2: Leverage the Credit of Your Customers.
Allied health staffing  funding is a great option for companies who are either just getting started, have less-than-perfect credit or are going through a growth spurt. Rather than make a credit decision based off of the staffing agency’s credit or the business owner’s personal credit, allied health agency funding firms determine their credit limits after reviewing the payment trends of the agency’s customers. This is usually done by using a third-party credit bureau, and it’s done in a non-intrusive way, giving companies the ability to secure allied health agency financing based off of their customers’ credit rather than their own.

Click here to find out the last reason Why Allied Health Staffing Agencies Should Factor Their Invoices.

Factoring for Medical Billing Companies – FAQs

A lot of questions can come up when a business owner starts researching medical billing funding solutions—the idea of selling their invoices to a factor or medical billing funding agency.  This article addresses some of the more frequently asked questions:

What differentiates a factoring firm who funds medical billing companies from a bank?
First and foremost, since medical billing factoring is not a loan, there is no debt on your medical billing company’s balance sheet. Moreover, factoring firms have the ability to make a quick decision regarding your medical billing funding options, while banks may take weeks—even months—to approve a loan.

Furthermore, factors determine lines of credit based on the creditworthiness of your customers, while banks focus on your company’s financial history and cash flow. In other words, a medical billing funding agency looks to your company’s future while banks place emphasis on your company’s past.

How long does it take to be approved for medical billing funding solutions?
In general, a medical billing funding agency will begin its due diligence process after receipt of a signed contract. This process can last anywhere between 1-5 business days, and money is moved at its conclusion. Thereafter, a medical billing service can receive funds in as little as 24 hours within verification.  See our medical billing factoring process and learn our medical billing funding options can benefit your medical billing business.

Click here to read more Frequently Asked Questions and Answers related to factoring for medical billing companies.

How Medical Billing Companies Can Avoid the Double Credit Crunch

In this economy, many service-oriented small businesses are struggling to obtain cash on two fronts – (1) Acquiring or extending a line of credit and (2) Getting their customers to pay in a timely manner.

Outsourced medical billing providers are just one type of business that is being affected by the “double credit crunch.” On the one hand, banks have tightened up on their lending criteria, and most are slashing credit lines instead of extending them, which means the likelihood of a medical billing provider securing bank funding is slim-to-none. On the other hand, even though an outsourced company’s main job is to bill insurance companies correctly so physicians (their customers) get paid quicker, those same physicians are oftentimes notorious for stretching out their payables.

Fortunately, there is an alternative financing option that can help speed up the payables process.

Medical billing accounts receivable factoring is the conversion of receivables into cash by selling outstanding invoices to a factor. A viable option for medical billing companies in the early stages of business development and /or during rapid growth, accounts receivable factoring is a financial solution that gives medical billers immediate cash to manage operations more efficiently. Here are some additional key concepts about this practical financing alternative.

Medical Billing Accounts Receivable Factoring is:

  • A way to fill the gap between when your company provides outsourced billing services and when the physicians pay. Simply put, medical billing invoice factoring can turn weeks into hours or days.
  • Based on your customers’ credit history, not yours. If your company is providing billing services to a creditworthy physician’s office or medical facility, then your business is a good candidate for accounts receivable factoring.
  • A simple, fast method to sustain your “business as usual” relationship with your customers. Your company can continue to provide medical billing services to your customers with a set-term payment; but with accounts receivable factoring, you no longer have to wait to be paid. By working with a factoring firm, your company can easily obtain cash advances of 80% of the invoiced amount. Cash can be obtained within hours and as often as needed.
  • One of the oldest methods of providing working capital. Dating back 4,000 years, receivables factoring has long been used as a feasible and easy way for businesses to obtain cash flow in order to cover expenses while experiencing growth.
  • A chance to obtain cash without providing personal collateral or increasing interest expense. Invoice factoring is not a loan and does not “muddy up” your medical billing company’s balance sheet. You do not accrue interest or penalties. The medical billing factoring fee is clear and objective; it is based on the size of the invoice, the length of time it takes to collect the payment, and the creditworthiness of your customers.
  • An opportunity to build your outsourced medical billing company’s credit: With adequate cash flow, you can use money from accounts receivable factoring to clean up your debts as well as pay overhead, salaries and invoices. This will improve your credit history and make it easier to obtain credit from vendors and other financial institutions in the future.

By working with an accounts receivable factoring company, your company’s cash flow problems can be solved. In most cases, a medical billing company can receive the majority of what’s owed to them within hours of selling their invoices to a factor. Factoring for your medical billing company will help you avoid falling prey to today’s “double credit crunch” that so many other small businesses are enduring as a result of the current economic climate.

**NOTE: This article is a re-printed version of what was also published on FactoringInvestor.com.

How Groupon Makes Factoring Invoices Look Cheap

Tracy Z wrote an interesting post on FactoringInvestor.com comparing and contrasting the cost Groupon vs. the cost of invoice factoring.

Rightfully so, Tracy defined the marketing lure of Groupon as “marketing with no upfront fees.” For cash-strapped business owners looking to make more sales, free advertising sounds like a good deal–That is until you break down the numbers:

  • 50% discount to customer
  • 25% fee to deal provider
  • 25% net to business owner

In essence, the business owner only makes 25% AND they have to wait to get their portion, in installments, over time.Tracy outline a simple example, where 1/3 of the business owner’s profits was paid in 5 days, 1/3 in 30 days and the balance within 60 days:

$100,000

-$50,000 discount

-$25,000 fees

=$25,000 received by business owner (33% or $8,333 immediate advance, with the remaining $16,667 paid out over 60 days.)

Then Tracy used the same scenario as though the business owner were factoring:

$100,000

-$5000 factoring fee (average 5%)

=$95,000 received by business owner (80% advance or $ 80,000 upfront, with the balance less the fees received once debtor pays in full).

Pretty interesting comparison, huh?

Click here to read the article Tracy referenced in her post: Why Groupon is Poised for Collapse.

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