RSMUS.comAs the US healthcare industry approaches $3 trillion in revenue in 2022, effective accounting becomes extremely important. Providers deal with large sums of money moving quickly between multiple sources, have extensive compliance and reporting requirements, and face increasing pressure to be accountable and competitive. For all these reasons, effective financial management ranks among the highest priorities in healthcare – and one of the greatest challenges, too. Despite differences among providers, their accounting struggles look similar, and everyone must think seriously about addressing them sooner rather than later.
Fortunately, making significant improvements on short timelines isn’t as difficult as it may seem. Almost all the pain points in healthcare accounting originate from the same source: outdated, disconnected, or underpowered accounting software. Many providers are using the solution they’ve had in place for years, or else software that isn’t suited to the particulars of healthcare accounting. Either way, it’s making routine, urgent, and strategic accounting requirements harder instead of easier. If software is the core problem, upgrading to something better solves so many things at once. It’s the miracle cure for healthcare accounting.
Why is Sage Intacct the best choice for healthcare?
Provided the right upgrade gets installed. Many providers choose Sage Intacct as their financial management solution, not just because it’s a modern, cloud-based financial platform available through a SaaS model – but primarily because it solves all their fundamental accounting challenges, turning inefficiencies and liabilities into strengths. Examples include:
- Medical Claim Coding Errors: The vast majority of coding issues are due to human errors like a miscommunication between billing staff and practitioners or failure to properly link diagnosis codes to Current Procedural Terminology. Sage Intacct eliminates these errors by automating more parts of the process so that coding data moves quickly, accurately, and (mostly) automatically through the billing process.
- Late Payments and Queried Accounts: When late payments show up on a bank statement months after the revenue was recorded, someone has to fix the issue, which is time-consuming and distorts the financial outlook. Sage Intacct was built to both catch and correct these inconsistencies automatically so that accounting stays compliant and accurately reflects the financial position.
- Unanticipated Asset Depreciation: The fast pace of change, innovation, and regulation in healthcare mean that assets may depreciate faster than anticipated, creating myriad accounting headaches in the process. As with so much else, Sage Intacct automates the depreciation calculations while giving decision-makers complete, accurate, and up-to-date visibility into financials from all angles.
- Improper Chart of Accounts Setup: Bad data streaming into the chart of accounts is an issue that gets worse over time, takes extensive effort to fix, and distorts financial data in ways that undermine planning and decision-making. Sage Intacct utilizes a dimensional accounting structure to minimize errors while maximizing the accessibility of account data.
- Bad Debt Management: Bad debts are common in healthcare because, for many reasons, providers can’t thoroughly vet someone’s creditworthiness before extending care. Sage Intacct provides a solution in the form of better upfront insights to minimize the occurrence of bad debts along with better tools to improve collection rates.
The Sage Intacct transplant
The accounting software marketplace has no shortage of options, but few if any offer the same range of powerful accounting capabilities combined with healthcare-specific tools and workflows that Sage Intacct does. It’s the clear choice for any provider struggling with some (or all) of the challenges explored above. And it’s a clear asset for any provider who wants to use accounting and finance to their advantage in the always-dynamic healthcare industry. The decision to replace accounting software comes with great consequences – but it’s easy to feel confident about Sage Intacct as the replacement.
Especially with the right partner to implement and optimize the solution. Like Sage Intacct, the ideal partner blends expertise in healthcare, accounting, and technology, which is why so many healthcare providers work with RSM.
Explore how our solutions could impact your own organization – contact RSM.
