We believe several factors set us apart from other firms performing this work:

·         Our firm focuses on Community Hospitals – We primarily serve community hospitals similar to your facility. Please see Appendix 4 for a listing of some of our more than 150 healthcare and related clients. 

·         Experienced personnel with both financial and clinical backgrounds – Personnel available to assist you include 16 CPAs as well as other personnel including former Trailblazer executives, Certified Professional Coders, Registered Nurses and Physician Practice Managers. Because we focus on healthcare, you can have confidence that any of our people assigned to your account will be experienced with your type of organization and accounting issues.

·         Involvement of the owners of our firm in your engagement – As discussed in the proposal, the owners of our firm expect to be involved in your engagement – in its planning, field work, cost report and tax return (if any).

·         Service Commitments – As noted above, we serve community hospitals. Our job is to help your organization.  As part of our proposal, we make the following service commitments:

1.      Access – We will assign a primary and secondary “partner” to your account as well as a manager. While you should expect to deal with the primary partner on most matters, you can have some assurance that someone familiar with the details of your organization should always be available to respond quickly to your inquiries. Please note that my office, mobile and home numbers are listed below. You are welcome to call me at any of those numbers at any time if you need our assistance.

2.      Timing – We will work together to develop a mutually agreeable timeline for delivery of your audit and cost report and to perform the work associated with these services. We strive to release your report within 90 days of the end of your fiscal year (at least a clean draft). We would like to deliver our report personally to your Board within 120 days of your fiscal year end.

3.      Communication and Organization – Listed below are some additional commitments we make to help manage the audit and cost report process and keep you informed of developments:

a.       We will issue a list of the routine information we expect to need before the end of the year.

b.      We will contact your personnel at the end of the year in order to determine if they need assistance with end of the year reports and assist them as needed.

c.       We will develop a timeline for the flow of information to us and keep management notified on a weekly basis regarding progress in order to assist timely completion of the audit. We will hold a pre-audit planning tele-conference with the Audit Committee, Management or whomever you designate prior to beginning field work. We try to build a picture of the hospital before coming into the field so our work will be focused on what we all agree are the risk areas.

d.      We will hold an exit conference with management regarding key issues as determined by our planning and field work. We invite your participation in evaluating our suggested control improvements and material adjustments. This conference will occur at the end of field work or within one week of exiting the field depending on the issues.

e.       We will issue a draft auditors report, financial statements, and report on internal control within 90 days of the end of the year (assuming that information is received on a timely basis).