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9.3 AICPA
9.3 AICPA’s Accounting Standards Executive Committee believes healthcare providers inappropriately classify some items as bad debts that were never revenue in the first place. Unless there is an expectation that the amounts will be collected, they should be deducted from revenue at the start of the recordkeeping process. For example, for some self-pay patients, it is quickly apparent that there is little or no realistic expectation of collection, so the deduction won't result in bad debts, but rather in a deduction from charges. Are there any hospitals actually doing this? How, using a dollar per account threshold? Has your auditors approved the accounting treatment?
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Critical Access Hospital List
Q: Is there a list somewhere of all the critical access hospitals in the country with mailing addresses? I have found one on line through a commercial site for $325. Shouldn't this be available from CMS?
Preparing for a Larger Role Withing Hospital
Q: I am the Director of Accounting for a mid size hospital. My future goal is to also direct the Decision Support department either here or at another facility. What can I do to prepare myself for that role?
Benchmarks
Q: Do you have any benchmarks for inventory days or turns by department?
Physician Compensation for Emergency Call
Q: I understand nationwide ... and from our own local experience, more and more Physicians are demanding pay from the hospitals in exchange for taking emergency call. Is there a credible source for average compensation rates for emergency call pay by specialty?
New Calculation of Charity Care
Q: With the recent decision by the IRS to exclude the cost of bad debts from the measurement and calculation of charity care and “community benefits”, how do you think this will affect the amounts reported in the new 990 form starting in 2008?
Matching Billing to Service under one Tax ID
Q: For a number of legal reasons, we have all our operations under one tax id number. However, we have a variety of business units which bill off different billing systems for unique service lines. One for the hospital, one for our ambulances and three systems for different physician practices. Since they all bill under one tax id, payers send money to the wrong units. We have several additional FTE who do nothing but track down money, make copies and send checks between units to clear up the problems. How can I get only the funds for each billing area correctly remitted just to that unit?
