Accounting: Occupational, Speech, and Physical Therapy

HIPAA compliant books

Just like other types of healthcare workers, occupational, speech and physical therapists need to keep HIPAA-compliant books. Here at Interactive Accountants, we have some experience with HIPAA and keeping medical practices HIPAA compliant. To read more about that, please click here for more information.

Occupational therapists need to keep HIPAA compliant just like any other practice. For an OT practice to remain HIPAA-compliant, their primary concerns will revolve around maintaining patient privacy and ensuring that their patients are aware of their Hippa and FERPA rights.

A particular area of concern that speech therapists will often need to consider is the additional major of HIPPA regulations regarding child patients. While not always the case, speech therapists need to consider making an extra level of effort because the penalties and fines associated can be worse if a patient under the age of 18 is involved. In our experience, the best way to keep your books compliant is to maintain orderly records and maintain a current understanding of what HIPAA laws are required of you at the moment. This information aims not to scare anyone involved with speech therapy but rather to simply inform you of the importance of your job and all the factors that need to be kept track of.

A physical therapist's HIPAA guidelines are the closest to most other groups of healthcare-based service, where the primary concern is patient privacy and data storage. Individually we can offer much more in-depth services for bookkeeping for each type of therapy under HIPAA guidelines.

Having a good knowledge of the industry

Knowing the industry you're involved in gives you the tools to succeed regardless of your field, from customer service to Neurosurgery. Though it's how you use the knowledge you gain in your industry that makes the difference between those that survive and those that thrive within their fields, respectively. Here at Interactive Accountants, we make it a personal mission to understand the fields we serve in-depth to help you with your books better so you can spend more time helping people. An area that all three types of practices would benefit from focusing on is increasing their technological knowledge. A growing number of medical and non-medical offices are beginning to use more digitized systems for their bookkeeping. While there are many benefits to this, there can also be some cons when thinking about HIPAA. This is because of the rigorous privacy standards around information collected by a HIPAA-compliant practice. With all that being said, our primary piece of advice would be to do your research on record-keeping technology that keeps data secure from outside sources of insecurity and internal ones.

Help find tax savings

One of the few up signs of being in a field that requires continued education is that it is considered a tax write-off. This is just one example of how therapists can save money on their taxes, thanks to their specific careers. One other example that ties into a previously mentioned topic is deducting software expenses. Your job is to help people, and thankfully there are many tax deductions out there that exist for these types of industries that we are discussing right now. A third and final area in which therapists can save quite a bit of money on their taxes revolves around insurance; between the amount paid by an insurance company to the amount billed, there are opportunities to get a tax break. Of course, each industry and each office will have different specifics that will guarantee them whether or not they are qualified for certain types of deductions. Individually we would love to consult with you and your practice to see what effective plans you can make to save taxes now.

Advice on tax credits based on hiring

Depending on the size of your business and the breakdown of your employees, there are certain tax credits you can take advantage of. This is especially true when applied to therapists like OTS and PTs, given that they often handle situations that involve some type of disability. This reality goes both ways. We're usually patient, and door clients will have some sort of disability on their record. Still, more relevant is the fact that because these are industries based on helping people, they often are more accepting, and that is very attractive for people with disabilities to work in this field.

The human variable is never to be underestimated and how it can shape a business and even impact taxes of all things. Here at Interactive Accountants; we understand how easy it is to separate the numbers from the people attached to them; however, we also acknowledge what a waste that would be. Individually we would love for you to reach out and see car services because the more you care, the more we care. Due to the level of our clients' drive, we care even more, and we have gone above and beyond our own expectations in the knowledge we have gained about what goes into these therapeutic fields and the tax deductions and or breaks that they are entitled to.

As we advance

Each office is different, and the needs of each will differ as well. From the many branches of physical, occupational, and speech services, the requirements of HIPAA are still there. We have many more ideas and services to help you and your business thrive under HIPAA guidelines. Here at Interactive Accountants, assisting businesses to grow and continue to succeed financially and compliantly is our number one goal. We are here to help! If you're still not convinced yet to give us a call, feel free to look at our other blogs regarding the help we offer medical services and businesses.

If you are a professional in any of the fields that HIPAA applies to, you will need a CPA firm that understands what your business does and what it needs. So give us a call or schedule a free consultation here with our owner Matthew Shiebler, CPA. He's been practicing accounting for over 25 years now and is a business owner, just like you!