I will just be a Devil's Advocate. I think the PPP was and is a brilliant plan. I can't believe anyone in government thought of it. Our patients started rescheduling their wcc visits left and right. We would definitely not have been able to have enough cash flow during these eight weeks. Telemed has been great, but you lose the little things that made you money, and without wccs paying double what a 99213 pays and difficulty charging for 99214s without a patient in the room, it brings in much less. But, Telemed has been great, and I almost wish it was all Telemed now.
When we stopped seeing patients, our staff would have to have been laid off or cut back. They would have taken the unemployment and the supposed $600 bonus for five to six weeks, which is crazy. Most patients I have talked with who filed for unemployment haven't received it yet. Promised, yes. Approved, yes. A check in the mail, no.
The beauty of the PPP is it takes that same money that would have been given directly to the employee who is now unemployed and is not contributing at all to the economy or any production and gives it to the employer to pay that employee. We applied for the PPP the day it was eligible using our same bank and was approved in days. It saved my practice.
Maybe it sounds bad, but once you have the PPP, your staff cannot apply for unemployment. It covers damned near everything including vacation time, sick leave, rent, utilities, physician salary.
I have three staff. I had one stay in the office, just had to have one physical preference. I gave her a sizeable bonus to compensate her for that. Having to drive back and forth to work, more exposure to the virus, etc. Usually, they are begging for more hours, but being on salary she asked to work 9 to 3:30 instead of 8:15 am to 4:30 pm. The other two worked from home. with VoIP phones, an RDS network with very fast Internet, it was like they were in the next room. In fact, it was easier. We have a very good message system and O365 email so files can be sent directly via email or Adobe or the messenger. It's pretty cool to type in the message box. Please send this to MaineCare and drag the file to the inbox and it goes from my office to her home 30 miles away in less than a second. Everyone can fax from their computer at home. My biller is one of the two, and she comes in on Mondays to deal with checks and certain paperwork. The other works from home or down in Connecticut -- just takes the phone and her laptop and plugs them in. We have to ask her where she is.
You have to start paying the loan back six months after you receive it. Then you have up to two years to pay it back at 1% interest. But, most are forgiven. The six month lag time is to give you time to have it forgiven. Just use it for the correct things and keep records, and it is highly likely it will be forgiven.
