Reasons & Tips to Outsource Bookkeeping for Hospitals

by Roy Roger B2B Services - Legal, Accounting

While the outsourcing industry has seen a surge in growth in recent times and is booming exponentially, there are some sectors that have traditionally been outsourcing their services though not in an organized manner. One of them is the health care industry and it will be relevant to see the operational intricacies of a hospital. Hospital services can be clearly demarcated in two — one that has always been outsourced and the other that can be considered to be an emerging area but nonetheless very important. In the former category is housekeeping, food services, laundry, maintenance of all civil, mechanical and electrical installations, transportation and ambulance services and pharmacy. In the latter group are laboratory services, nursing, home care services, radiology, insurance claims processing and payroll, administration and bookkeeping functions.

It can be seen that all these do not fall under core competencies of hospital functioning and can be taken to be simply supportive services. Further, the high cost and the need for increased capital expenditure in latest equipment for radiology and imaging, dental care, oncology, nuclear medicine and ophthalmology requires conservation of resources and lesser investments in non-core areas. Administrative and payroll functions as well as accounting work fall in this category and reason why the trend is to outsource bookkeeping for hospitals.

The primary reason therefore for hospitals to choose outsourcing of bookkeeping services is to save precious reserves in setting up infrastructure to run accounting activities. Thus the need for installing advanced hardware and getting customized software that takes into account the large number of different in-house and outsourced basic services is fully eliminated. Hiring of highly salaried accounting personnel as well as allotting space to run a fully-fledged accounts department is also not required. This savings can be better utilized in offering a greater level of patient care.

Once the decision to offshore bookkeeping services is taken, you’ll do well to keep a few things in mind.

Outsourcing comprehensive accounting functions — Never vacillate on the accounting areas to outsource, go for comprehensive services. If you have any apprehensions of sharing confidential data forget the thought. All outsourcing agencies handling bookkeeping services have systems in place that ensure iron-clad security of all data and information. Further, by partly doing in-house data processing and uploading it to the agency to incorporate with the rest for generating final reports results in delays and creates a potential risk for errors. Then there are interrelated reports that depend on an amalgamation of data from different sources. Outsource the full bookkeeping functions for best results.

Check for the expertise of the outsourced agency — This should be primarily on your mind when you zero in on a reputed bookkeeping outsourcing agency. Check the credentials of the man power resources. Hospital accounts are very intricate in nature with hundreds of different parameters to be considered. Make sure that those who will be handling your process are professionals with such benchmark qualifications as ICB (Institute of Certified Bookkeepers), ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) and so on.

Verify the accounting procedures and software being used — Remember that the accounting procedures and software being used by the agency has to match your requirements not only in present times but also to fulfil your future needs. When you outsource bookkeeping for hospitals, they should be able to update data on a real time basis and be able to submit periodical reports of different functions whenever necessary. Only then will you be able to keep a track of the operating efficiencies of the hospital. It will also be wise to opt for cloud computing so that crucial data is always safe without any possibility of errors or loss.

These are a few general and common tips that may be referred to while deciding on outsourcing hospital bookkeeping services. However, the final choice should depend on many specific factors such as the size of the hospitals and the depth and extent of services offered.