How Can Medical Staffing Payroll Factoring Help My Agency?

Do you have a profitable medical staffing agency that is sometimes short on cash? Or are you thinking of starting a medical staffing agency and worried that you won’t have enough money to make payroll? If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you are not alone. Every medical staffing agency owner goes through cash flow challenges. Some find ways to overcome their cash flow problems, and some do not. If you want to be one of the medical staffing business owners that succeed, then you should keep view this video:

One of the most frustrating aspects of owning a medical staffing business is that healthcare providers oftentimes insist on extending payments beyond 45 days. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a large medical facility to cut checks 60 days or later after services have been rendered. Naturally, a consistent history of ‘staff now and get paid later’ can wreak havoc for any new or growing medical staffing company. In effect, it causes the agency to be invoice rich and cash poor, which means that a medical staffing agency has a lot of outstanding receivables and little cash in the bank to show for it.

Fortunately, there is an easy way for staffing agency owners to turn their receivables into cash – medical staffing payroll factoring. It’s is one of the most used and least talked about ways to finance a business. In essence, medical staffing payroll factoring is a financing tool that allows medical staffing agency owners to convert their invoices into cash immediately. Specifically, a medical staffing payroll factor purchases an agency’s invoices at a discount and offers an advance payment to the agency. When the invoices come due, the medical staffing payroll factor collects directly from the agency’s clients (account debtors), takes its fees and releases the balance back to the agency. Utilizing medical staffing payroll factoring can transform an invoice rich agency into a cash rich…

Click here to keep reading How Can Medical Staffing Payroll Factoring Help My Agency?

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.

NYSE Primed for Receivables Market

The New York Stock Exchange announced some of its plans to get involved with accounts receivable factoring industry earlier this week.

Specifically, the NYSE hired Paul DeDomenico, previously chief executive of GE Capital’s working capital solutions group to head up the exchange group’s corporate receivables program. In addition, the NYSE took a minority stake in The Receivables Exchange.

The two moves, which come amid a fierce political debate over bank lending to small-and-midsize businesses, could provide an advantage to the NYSE in its battle with competitors over share listings, by allowing the Big Board operator to offer a broader suite of services to companies that choose to list with it. And the moves provide an entry point to a market in receivables estimated by the companies at $17 trillion in size domestically.

Click here for the entire article: NYSE Euronext Bulks Up In Market for Receivables.

Small Business Owners: Pawn Shop is Alternative to Bank

CnnMoney.com posted a very interesting article last month, which described how business owners are starting to turn to pawn shops for fast cash when they are unable to qualify for a bank loan.

The pawing process is similar to a bank loan, in that an entrepreneur brings in an item of value (i.e. gold or jewelry) to a pawn shop and gets a loan based on the value of the item. Also like a bank loan, the business owner is charged interest. Once the loan is repaid, the business owner can take the item back. But if the owner cannot pay the pawn shop back, the store keeps the item, and tries to recover the loaned amount by selling the item.

According to a salesman at a pawn shop in Florida, the number one reason business owners are turning to pawn shops is to meet payroll. The loans come with a hefty price–one shop charges 6% per month–But for business owners that don’t have enough liquid capital to pay their employees, it’s worth the price.

Another alternative financing solution which is eve more affordable than pawning is accounts receivable factoring, in which a business owner can sell his/her invoices to a factor and receive cash the same day he/she invoices.

Read the entire article: Pawning Rolexes to Make Payroll.

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.

ACE11 Recap

All in all, the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity (AHDI) 2011 Conference was a memorable one. Phil Cohen and Taylor Materna represented PRN Funding in booth #406 at ACE11 last week in Phoenix. They had the opportunity to speak with a number of MTSOs about the benefits of medical transcription invoice factoring.

Arriving back in the office today, the two had some overall thoughts to share about their experiences…

  1. They both felt that the show was run incredibly well.
  2. They had a steady stream of traffic at the booth, thanks in part to the Treasure Hunt promotion.
  3. The attendees were ready and willing to engage and learn about transcription factoring.

However, the biggest realization the medical transcription invoice funding specialists walked away with was that CDIA and AHDI need to combine forces and put on one big medical transcription conference in 2013.

Question: What do you think about CDIA and AHDI putting on one medical transcription conference in 2013?

MTChat Moves Back to MTDesk

That’s right! MTChat is moving back to MTDesk.com. The owner of both sites, Lisa Algeo, wrote a guest post on ADVANCE Perspective’s HIM Blog explaining the new change.

Ms. Algeo acquired the site in 2009 from Elsevier when they could no longer commit to running both sites. Ms. Algeo was excited to move the open source online style guide wiki that she has been working on at MT Reference to MTDesk. Over the next two years, MTChat’s forums were not as popular.

At the same time that MTChat participants were dwindling, Ms. Algeo had made significant improvements to the wiki platform being used at MTDesk, and she used that to create active forums on MTDesk.

She said in the blog post: “After reviewing the site statistics for both sites, I felt bringing the discussion forums back to MT Desk would benefit both sites and make it easier for me to manage the forums while continuing to build the reference wiki at MT Desk.”

As for the future, the forums on MTChat will remain active for some time, however, they all will eventually be migrated to MTDesk, and then MTChat will close permanently.

Click here to read Ms. Algeo’s blog post in its entirety: MTChat is Moving Back to MTDesk.

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.

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