In a medical practice, tax planning is not only a set of steps you need to do each quarter. It can have a huge impact on your income and profits, influencing your practice’s financial health. So, how can you handle the intricacies of your accounts to ensure your cash flow is not hampered by taxes, and can anyone help you avoid such a situation?
Below, we offer five ways medical practice tax services are your ally against a tide of numbers. They offer both advice and hands-on work to help you handle complex tax strategies and bring your finances back into a manageable form. By the time you finish reading, you should also learn how to contact such accounting services for your own needs as well as who we recommend for the job.
1. Helping You Navigate Tax Benefits and Deductions
Accounting services are a great tool for medical practices due to the very specific expenses such businesses incur. A trained tax specialist can, for example, handle business tax deductions, learning whether a practice can get refunds. Examples of where they would look for this kind of benefit include:
- Medical equipment
- Office supplies
- Electronic health record services
- Continued medical education
- Marketing expenses
- Credit card convenience fees
- Transportation costs
- Business Insurance
- Patient language interpretation services
At the same time, such services can start to point out places where the practice can apply for tax credits. This allows you to claw back bonuses for things like hiring certain groups or adopting green practices.
Depending on your practice, you may also engage in charitable pro bono work. If this is the case, an accounting service can discuss with you how this can qualify you for tax deductions.
2. Assisting With Healthcare Tax Regulations
Taxation policies change almost every year. Even businesses like yours can fall foul of not knowing what changes have occurred and when.
Lucky for you, tax services for medical practices can help you navigate these updates. In doing this, they ensure fall victim to fines or other sanctions when you did not know you had any obligations to start with.
These services can also offer other kinds of advice, too, to help you set up and maintain your business. If you do not have a practice yet and intend to start one, they can talk to you about the different business structures your practice can take. As each of these comes with its own set of rules related to tax obligations, it is a good idea to understand how each can impact your bottom line.
With so many different ways to get paid, such as Medicaid or Medicare, it can also be overwhelming for you to understand how this affects taxes. Working with a tax service can help give you much more insight into what you need to do to ensure you follow the rules related to these.
In looking through your records, they can also search for areas where you are currently not compliant. They are then able to work with you to create a process to correct these mistakes and report them when necessary.
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3. Maintaining Records to Prepare for Audits
Medical practice tax planning services have the skills to help you keep meticulous account records. This can safeguard you against potential audits and also streamline the process if it occurs.
With their experience, they can offer you information on the types of records you need to maintain as well as how to keep them. For example, you will need to maintain extensive data on:
- Patient billing records
- Expense receipts
- Payroll documentation
When you need to access this information for sending to external authorities, it is then on hand and easily summarized or transferred.
Any up-to-date tax service worth its salt will also have access to high-quality digital recording systems. They can use these to digitize any physical documents you have to both reduce paperwork and enable simple text searches. You can then handle your taxes without needing to sift through piles and piles of documents.
If they find issues in your records that an audit may flag up, they are also able to warn you of this in due time. You can then do the investigation necessary to correct this issue before it becomes a larger problem.
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4. Navigating the Impact of the Changing Healthcare Landscape
The evolving nature of the healthcare industry as well as how insurance has changed over the past few decades has caused a lot of confusion. As practices try to keep up with these reforms, many have turned to accounting and tax services for physicians for advice.
Both Medicare and Medicaid, as well as other legacy healthcare changes, have necessitated the use of tax consultants. They can become involved long in advance, allowing the business to make changes ahead of time, as well as after.
These same services have also been able to advise practices on how new innovations may impact their tax strategy. For example, recent updates in taxation due to telehealth policies and other areas of medicine that have changed due to COVID-19.
5. When to Leverage Professional Services
There are several moments in the life of your practice you may want to consider hiring in a tax service. They include:
- When you feel overwhelmed by tax details
- As the practice grows
- When regulations change
- If you need help with tax resolution due to a financial issue
- When an audit occurs
Medical practice tax services can help you resolve each of these issues and come out the other side stronger. So, make sure to have the contact details for one on hand.
A Leader in Medical Practice Tax Services
Tax planning for medical practices demands more than simple professional expertise. It needs someone who speaks the language of healthcare and can explain the intricacies of those kinds of financial accounts. This is why good medical practice tax services are hard to find.
Luckily for you, Basta+Croop can step in and help. We help businesses like yours in the Charlotte, NC, area thrive. We offer help even during a difficult period of changing legislation or a downturn in profits. So, check out our services and learn more about how we can take that weight off your shoulders today.