Healthcare Practice Funding in Buffalo, NY

Big systems, small offices

Buffalo's health care sector is one of its main economic pillars. Nine hospitals operate in the city, including Kaleida Health's Buffalo General Medical Center and Golisano Children's Hospital, Catholic Health's Mercy and Sisters of Charity hospitals, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and the county-run Erie County Medical Center, all alongside the University at Buffalo's medical school on the 120-acre Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Around them sit hundreds of independent offices: primary care, specialists, dental, behavioral health and rehabilitation.

Those offices share the same payer system as the large institutions, but they hold much less cash against its delays.

A cash timeline for a small practice

1. Day of visit. The practice has paid staff, rent and supplies. No revenue yet.
2. Claim submission. Billing staff code and file. A coding error means a rework.
3. Payer processing. Weeks may pass. Requests for records add time.
4. Denial or adjustment. The claim returns, and the process restarts.
5. Payment. The cash arrives, long after the costs did.

This is the insurance reimbursement lag, and it does not shrink as a practice grows. It just gets larger in dollars.

Independent practice versus joining a system

Some owners decide to join a larger system partly because of cash-flow pressure. Others try to stay independent by building a reserve or arranging funding. Neither is right for everyone, and the choice is not ours. What we can say is that a practice weighing independence should know how many days of operating costs it can cover without a single claim paying. If the number is small, a funding option in place before a crunch makes the independent path steadier.

Uses that make sense

• Payroll bridging while a batch of claims is pending, using working capital.
• Equipment such as an exam-room set, dental operatory or imaging unit, through equipment financing.
• Opening an additional day or location before the added patients are in the books.

For illustration only, not our terms or a typical outcome. A four-provider practice has $80,000 in monthly costs. If claims pay about forty days after the visit, it is always carrying more than a month of expenses, roughly $107,000, in unpaid receivables. A payer delay makes the number larger. Funding runs from $25,000 to $5,000,000, funds can arrive in as little as 24 hours, and FICO 500+ is considered. We ask for about three months of business bank statements, no tax returns, and the application takes about five minutes with a soft credit pull. Sole proprietors can apply.

Before you apply

It helps to know your average days from visit to payment and your weekly payroll. With those two numbers and about three months of bank statements, a request can be sized to the actual gap instead of a guess. Applying takes about five minutes.