Closing a Medical Practice? Here’s Your Checklist
You’ve finally done it – you’ve decided after thirty long years, to retire and close up your medical practice. Your mind is already drifting to the yacht you want to buy or the trip to Europe you’re taking your family on. Unfortunately, there are a quite a few things to consider before you can officially close the doors and blissfully enter into the years of retirement.
Here is a checklist of things to consider when planning on closing your medical practice:
- Notify your staff, patients, professional associations, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Health Insurance companies, hospitals, other physicians, your suppliers and utility companies that you will be closing your practice. It is generally considered best to give 60 to 90 days notice of closing to invested parties.
- Begin referring patients to a new physician and stop accepting new patients or appointments.
- Process your Accounts Receivable to collect any monies owed to you. It may be wise to consider hiring a collection agency to reconcile these past due accounts.
- Review insurance policies and update or cancel policies where appropriate. This includes liability, health, life, disability, workers compensation, etc.
- Purchase tail coverage extended liability insurance, which will protect you from claims reported after your liability coverage expires.
- Contact the U.S. Postal Service to arrange mail forwarding after your closing date.
- Set up a phone line or answering service to direct calls, or prepare a message for office phone calls after your closing date.
- Plan to sell or dispose of your office equipment.
- If you rent your building, give your property owner the required notice that you will be vacating the premises.
Once you’ve done everything on that list, which seems daunting in itself, then comes the almost impossible task of arranging for safe storage, transfer and disposal of your patients’ sensitive medical records. This can be a gargantuan task considering the size of your practice, sensitivity of patient information, and the strict federal and state guidelines that dictate how this is completed.
Before your head starts spinning too much, know that Datafied is here to help with all of your medical record needs. Datafied provides medical record services, such as record storage, scanning and record conversion, and document shredding, through MyRetiredDoctor.com.
How Can My Retired Doctor Help?
My Retired Doctor is a fully licensed and insured company that will take care of the hassle of dealing with the storage, transfer and destruction of the medical records from your practice. We are able to scan your paper records and convert them to digital records. This will make your life, your patient’s lives and the life of whomever takes over caring for your patients, much easier. These digital records can also be stored on our secure servers and accessed later by authorized parties.
When the time is right, My Retired Doctor can also shred all of your documents. This will be done securely and according to all federal and state regulations. Our shredding service is HIPAA compliant so you will not need to worry about sensitive information getting into the wrong hands. We know how important your patient’s information is, and will ensure that all documents are handled in a safe, secure manner.
Ready to Get Started?
If you are ready to let My Retired Doctor help you sail smoothly into retirement, contact us by phone at 800-765-7510 or email info@datafied.com.
