Ask-A-Consultant: Selling practice upon retirement
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Medical Management Associates Ask-A-Consultant: Selling practice upon retirement |
After you obtain a
fair market appraisal,
you may want to consider restructuring your asking price to make the practice
more marketable (and less risky to potential purchasers). To begin, you
may want to retain your accounts receivable or have the purchaser collect
the receivables on your behalf. You might also want to consider breaking
up the purchase price into that portion attributable to the tangibles (furniture,
fixtures, supplies, etc.) versus the intangibles or “goodwill”. The price
for the tangibles should be fixed and possibly payable by the purchaser
over a period of several years. The portion attributable to the intangibles
might then be converted to a percentage of the practice’s collections for
a period of time following your retirement. This approach substantially
limits the buyer’s risks while relieving you of the responsibility of disposing
of your medical records. Of course, you need to be comfortable that the
buyer will be able to retain your patients, will have the proper accounting
systems in place to allow you to monitor collections and can be counted
on to make payments in a timely fashion. In addition, it is very important
to structure the sale of the practice in conformance with the applicable
Medicare/Medicaid Safe Harbors for such a sale and to consider the tax
implications to both you and the buyer.
Charles Y. Thomason III
President
MMA does not provide
legal, accounting, or tax advice. If you need assistance in these
areas, we recommend that you consult a qualified professional. In
addition, please note that a client relationship with MMA is not established
by the submission of a question to this forum or by the publishing of MMA's
response.
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www.medicalmanagement.com |
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