How Important is it for Nurse Staffing Agencies to Pay Payroll Taxes on Time?

From time to time, the nurse staffing invoice funding specialists at PRN Funding gets asked a question that we think our nurse staffing readers would appreciate hearing about. So today, our nurse staffing factoring staff are answering:

How Important is it for nurse staffing agencies to pay payroll taxes on time?

In short, VERY! Nurse staffing business owners may be able to dodge the bullet for a bit, but not paying your payroll taxes on time will catch up on business owners eventually. When the IRS discovers that a nurse staffing agency owner is behind, the punishment can cost the agency dearly.

The good news is that there are ways to catch up on back taxes. The best way for staffing agencies to stay in good-standing with the IRS is to respond to their calls and letters, and once a re-payment plan in is place, agency owners need to honor their commitments. Demonstrating a willingness to cooperate with the IRS helps nurse staffing agency owners avoid an IRS tax lien on his/her business.

It’s important to note that when a nurse staffing agency has a factoring relationship, the factor will be most likely want to see proof that payroll taxes are being paid. Nurse staffing invoice factoring companies will ask for this proof because the IRS is the only entity who can trump a factor’s lien.

Learn about Medical Transcription Factoring at ACE11

Phoenix, AZ – The Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI)is holding its Annual Convention and Expo at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge August 17-21, and PRN Funding, LLC will be in booth #406.

MTSOs and business owners interested in learning about an alternative form of financing can meet with the owner of PRN Funding, Phil Cohen, and Account Specialist, Taylor Materna, during exhibit hours.

In addition, AHDI attendees are encouraged to stop by PRN Funding’s booth to get a sticker as part of the Wheel of Prizes game. After visiting with participating exhibitors and collecting stickers, attendees can turn in their completed cards for a chance to spin the Wheel of Prizes.

Click here to read the official press release: Learn about Medical Transcription Factoring at ACE11.

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.

What to Tell Your Customers When You Are Working with a Nurse Staffing Factor

Hiring an invoice funding company can be an unnerving process for nurse staffing agency owners because they may be worried about how their customers will view the new financing relationship. It’s a natural concern to have; however, working with a nurse staffing account receivables factoring company doesn’t have to be scary. This article gives three unique responses that agency owners can give to their customers to help explain a new account receivables factoring arrangement.

Nurse Staffing Account Receivables Factoring Response #1:
Invoice factoring is just an alternative form of financing.
As a result of these difficult economic times, traditional lenders (i.e. banks) are not extending new credit lines, and/or they are increasing interest rates. This makes it extremely difficult for a temporary nurse staffing agency to obtain traditional financing. At the same time, the demand for temporary nurses has sky-rocketed.

Savvy staffing agency owners are turning to alternative sources of financing to ensure that their businesses have a positive cash flow. In short, working with a nurse staffing account receivables factoring firm proves that the agency is fiscally sound and prepared to weather the down economy. Moreover, the factoring arrangement will allow my agency to continue to grow without hindering our ability to provide quality nurses to your facility.

Nurse Staffing Account Receivables Factoring Response #2:
Our current nurse staffing relationship will go unchanged.
Even though a factoring company will be managing my staffing agency’s receivables, the business relationship that I have with your medical facility will not change.  We will continue to provide you with excellent nurses and invoice as usual. Should you need one of our supplemental nurses to fill a staffing gap, feel free to contact our agency directly, and we will find a nurse to fill the position.

The only thing that will change on your end is the remittance address, as payments should now be sent directly to the factoring company.

Click here to find out what the third nurse staffing factoring response is.


Healthcare Staffing Factoring – How Does it work?

There is a common misconception that healthcare staffing factoring is a complicated type of financing. In actuality, the factoring process is actually quite simple. All it takes is five easy steps…

Step One: Sell Healthcare Staffing Agency Invoices to a Factor

Technically, the first step in the healthcare staffing factoring equation happens when the agency’s customer (presumably a medical facility) has a shift open and requests the agency to fill that position. Once an agency employee works the shift, the agency is able to invoice the facility for the hours worked. At any time after the agency has invoiced the medical facility, it also has the ability to sell the invoice to a healthcare staffing factor.

The actual sale of the invoice is usually accomplished electronically, in that the agency emails or faxes a copy of the invoice along with corresponding signed timed sheets to the healthcare staffing factoring agency. The invoices and timesheets must be accompanied by an Assignment of Accounts Receivables form, which lists out all the invoices the agency wishes to sell to the factor and includes a signature from an authorized employee of the agency.

Step Two: New Debtor Credit Check

Once the healthcare staffing factoring firm receives the schedule of invoices and timesheets, an account manager reviews it for new customers. If there happens to be new customers (a.k.a. debtors), the account manager will conduct a brief credit review in order to establish a line of credit for that debtor. Typically, the credit review process can be completed within 24 hours of receipt. Once a new debtor has been approved for funding, the account manager will notify the debtor’s accounts payables department that when they receive invoices from the agency, the payment should be remitted directly to the factor.

If there are no new debtors included with the schedule, then the account manager simply moves on to step three of the healthcare staffing factoring process, which involves verifying the submitted invoices.

Want to find out the last three steps? Click here: How Does Healthcare Staffing Factoring Work?

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.

Ways to Market Your Medical Billing Service

Mother and daughter, Alice Scott and Michele Redmond, wrote an excellent article in Issue 6.4 of BC Advantage. The duo are coauthors of 11 books on medical billing and medical credentialing and co-owners of Solutions Medical Billing Inc. The medical billing invoice funding experts at PRN Funding thought the information within the article would be quite beneficial to our medical billing business owner readers. Written below is a brief summary of the article, which appeared on pages 20-21 of the medical billing and coding magazine.

The ladies emphasized the fact that those medical billing company owners who are serious about making it in the business “learn to market effectively and quickly.” They go on to say that there are a number of different ways to market a medical billing service, and that the key to being successful is developing a marketing plan, and then sticking to it.

Utilizing referrals is a great way to get started. However, many business owners assume that referrals can only come from clients. So what do you do if your medical billing service is new, and you don’t have any clients yet? Remember that referrals can come from sources other than clients. Alice and Michele suggest asking yourself this question when looking for good referral sources: “Who do you know that is aware of your abilities and strong points?”

For example, you could reach out to doctors you worked for in the past and ask them to write a referral for you medical billing company, or check in with a teacher you remember from when you took medical billing classes, etc., etc.

Finally, the medical billing industry authors suggested that business owners “get someone to offer some inside information that gives you a little leverage in getting in to see a doctor about your service.” Tell your general practitioner about your medical billing business. Even if he/she cannot use your medical billing services, perhaps they could refer someone else who can.

The women concluded the article by reminding medical billing entrepreneurs that word-of-mouth marketing can only take your business so far, and that sooner or later, you will have to spend money to make a real marketing impression.

For medical billing companies who are just getting started, it might be hard for them to acquire the cash needed to implement a strong marketing program. Enter medical billing accounts receivable factoring. Startup medical billing companies can sell their invoices to a medical billing factor, and get cash upfront to cover those marketing costs. Visit PRN Funding’s medical billing factoring page to learn more about this financing alternative.

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