A common concern among physical therapy clinics is how to prevent staff from embezzeling funds, mainly daily cash copays.
Unfortunately, this is a bigger problem than most would think. Copay collections, having a single person managing cash and billing, and inadequate processes and software can all leave your practice vulnerable.
Here are four steps you can take to prevent this type of staff behavior:
- Require your staff to print a receipt for every patient copay collected. There should be no exceptions to this rule.
- Encourage your patients to pay by check or credit card, not cash.
- You should have your front desk staff run a Cash Collection report out of your EMR or practice management system, and include that report with the cash, checks and credit card slips that have been collected for deposit (In the Clinicient system, run this from the main menu, Collections/Cash Collections).
- If possible, have someone else (even you) reconcile the cash collected with the report.
Of course, this doesn’t absolutely guarantee that someone couldn’t pocket the occasional cash copay, but if it is known that receipts are required to be printed for every transaction and someone is reconciling the cash collected with the report, it will stop all but the most brazen dishonest employee from stealing that money.
