Hello All,
I have a client I have been working with for 10 years. Recently she asked for a meeting via email and wrote that she has an associate who "may be interested in taking over management/ownership of the practice at some point in the future, and I realize I do not have a good enough grasp on the A/R management to explain it to him. I would like to teach him (and me!) how to analyze CT's A/R reports, etc..
Reviewing my office's staff-generated stats page has become insufficient for me to understand what is happening with the practice at this size. For example, currently it says our YTD collection % is 88%, compared to 97% last year (It typically varies between 96-100%, and has never been below 96% for the year in the past)..."
I followed up via phone with her and asked her exactly what she wants me to show her and her associate and her answer was basically she wants me to show them what reports I routinely run each month for aging and how I go about working them.
As I said, this is a long term client, we began working together in 2009. When I was pregnant in 2011 she wanted me to teach a new office staff person how to do what I do rather than let my business partner run her billing for 3 months. I refused and told her I would not effectively train someone who could be my replacement. When I was this blunt with her she seemed to grasp the inappropriateness of what she was asking me to do and she backed off. Instead, she asked me to teach her more about the program they had recently switched to in office. So I taught her how to send claims and post insurance payments and that was that.
Fast forward 8 years and I feel like I am being put in essentially the same position again, only this time she is asking me to teach herself and an associate how to do monthly aging and how to analyze reports I do not actually analyze.
I am not the sort of person that runs reports and looks at stats, etc... I look at the nitty gritty of each claim and work reports that way. I don't "analyze a/r" nor have I ever. I simply do my job and make sure claims are not older than 30 days and work those that are.
I do a great job, but her bill has been rising because of many new carrier policies in our state since 2019 have meant I have to appeal many claims each week and she is an hourly client, and her income is obviously going down at the same time. I know why her numbers are low. She does too.
I feel like I am being mined for information and I feel a better approach would be for her to contact her software vendor and ask them what reports she should run to get a "good enough grasp on the A/R management to explain it to him."
Any thoughts or opinions on this one?
Thanks again.
