Zuelke & Associates
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We continue to see practices with excessive credit balances, and it is not at all unusual to see accompanying accounting/posting sloppiness and embezzlement. No practice should have more than 1% of its open accounts (“open” accounts are those with an existing balance, whether due now or not) as credits. So, a practice with 500 open accounts should have no more than 5 credit balances! The credit balances you have should be for patients who have purposely pre-paid for work to be done in the future. No other credit balances should be held in your practice!

While this is an accounting issue, it is primarily a Marketing and Public Relations issue. If you want to wreck your reputation and level of trust with your patients, let them find out you did not promptly refund their insurance or other overpayment!

Identify your credit balances by printing your A/R report or your “All Non Zero Accounts Receivable” report, an A/R report that lists every patient in the practice with a balance other than $0, and get those credit balances returned to the patients/parents to whom they belong.

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