Track production to avoid compensation blunders

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Q: In our practice, veterinarians are paid on production and we use travel sheets for charges. If a travel sheet is missing charges, lost or not filled out, charges are then assigned to the hospital and I'm not compensated for the work performed. Is this practice legal, and what actions should I take?

I can see how that would be frustrating. The standard approach with the ProSal method is that if you performed the service and it was missed through human error, those production dollars would be placed under your provider code when they are “found,” provided that the practice actually collected the fees. From a legal standpoint, this is an area that would ideally be outlined in your employment contract, so you and the practice owner clearly understand up front what would happen if this occurs.

When I hear that there are errors of this nature, it tells me that the practice team doesn't have checks and balances in place. To head off this problem, I'd give team members some additional training to assure they understand what's included and how to code inside the system. At the end of the day, someone should be responsible for showing that the charges are correct before the end-of-day procedure begins. That person would review any problems they find with team members so those problems don't recur. And with this approach, doctors can look at their production in the system at any time to identify potential problems before calculations are made to determine production payment.

This may sound a bit intense to set up, but it's not difficult to manage once everyone is on board. And it's a pretty standard approach for tracking production, so you are not asking anyone to do anything extraordinary or excessive in terms of the time commitment. This accuracy in coding helps in areas besides production, too, making your record keeping in general much stronger.

For additional information, a helpful review on ProSal can be found here.

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Angela Elia, BS, LVT, CVT, VTS (ECC)
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