There are few bigger pains for healthcare industry professionals than having to wait 30, 60 or even 120 days to collect payments from insurance companies, HMOs and Medicare/Medicaid. The healthcare industry is riddled with complex billing, coding and processing rules that create very long payment cycles. This can be very difficult for medical offices, testing and diagnostic centers, medical supply companies, or any healthcare related business, for that matter. There are always many ongoing expenses that can’t wait. There is rent that needs to be paid, offices expenses that need to be covered, and payroll that must be met.

This situation creates a problem for most healthcare businesses. On paper, the business may look very profitable and seem to be doing well. But in reality, most of the money is tied up in slow paying invoices (also known as accounts receivable) with little cash to show for it in the bank.

When faced with tight cash flow, most healthcare professionals turn to their bankers. Medical doctors can usually qualify for signature loans or lines of credit. Other business professionals are not so lucky. In reality, a loan or line of credit may help you in the short term, but will not solve the main problem. Why? Well, loans are good for buying equipment or large capital expenditures, but not for covering recurring and ongoing expenses. A line of credit is a better solution, but they usually have fixed limits. What happens if the business grows past the limits of the line of credit? Many healthcare professionals usually find out, the hard way, that the bankers that were quite happy to extend the first loan or line of credit will not be so helpful at increasing it. Unfortunately, bankers absolutely hate it when businesses came back to the well for more money.

If you look at the problem at hand, you will soon realize that the perfect solution should have the following characteristics. First, it should be able to accelerate your insurance payments so that you can get them quickly rather than slowly. Second, the solution should be able to grow with your business. So, if your business grows its billings, the solution should be able to adapt the financing it delivers, seamlessly. Third, the solution should allow you to finance significant growth. Maybe three to five times your current revenues – or more.

There is a solution that meets these criteria and is available to the healthcare industry. The solution is to factor your medical receivables using a financing tool called medical factoring. Medical factoring allows you to accelerate your payments from insurance companies, HMO’s or Medicare/Medicaid. It enables you to receive a substantial amount of your net collectables within days of billing, streamlining your cash flow dramatically.

Medical factoring, a specialty form of general factoring, allows you to sell your claims and receivables to a factoring financing company. The factoring company buys them – at a small discount – and pays you with immediate funds. The factoring company waits to be paid while you get to use the funds to meet business expenses. As opposed to traditional banking financial products, medical factoring has no arbitrary limits. You can factor or sell as much revenue as you can generate, making it the ideal financing tool for growth.

However, factoring is not the best solution for every situation. It works best in instances where your main challenge is that you cannot afford to wait to get paid in 60 to 120 days. It helps you meet ongoing and recurring expenses such as rent, payroll and lease payments. Medical factoring is an ideal solution for medical offices, rehabilitation centers, medical testing and diagnostic centers, medical supply companies and small to mid sized hospitals.

Read more...

Hospital and health clinic administrators know how incredibly expensive it is to run a medical facility, with all the specialized care medical equipment. These buildings are incredibly important but they are also very specialized. When someone wants to start up a new facility, they need either to purchase an old hospital or health clinic or to build one completely from scratch. Hospitals are unique buildings; they are, in a sense, the combination of a hotel and a science lab. Different wings are designated for different purposes; some need to have the ability to be sealed off completely such as the infectious ward and others need complete privacy. Add the unique room specifications to all the special hook-ups and one can start to imagine how incredibly expensive this type of building can be to construct!

Once the walls are erected, however, the medical facility still needs to be equipped! Everything from patient beds, IV stands, and electrocardiogram (EKG) machines to things such dinner trays, bandages, and toilet paper are expenses that cannot be overlooked. Medical supplies and equipment, especially specialized machines, are integral to a successful hospital. However, these machines are extremely expensive because they are not in high demand. A magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) machine for instance is used daily to detect health problems and is one of the most advanced machines available to doctors today. However, just one of these machines can cost over one million dollars! Most towns will not even have one MRI machine and even large cities may not have more than ten.

In order to offset the costs of these expensive, but essential, machines, administrators should look into purchasing discount medical supplies. Hospitals that have closed a wing or shut down altogether have several machines that are still in great working condition. Refurbished or used medical equipment have been thoroughly examined by biomedical technicians, who make all repairs and replace all broken parts. These medical machines can be found online for great prices. Instead of purchasing a brand new EKG machine for $5,000, you can find one for less than $2,000! As long as the machine has been tested thoroughly, it will be as good as new. Save money by purchasing discounted medical supplies online!

Read more...