[Transcript] Episode 505: What Group Practice Owners Need to Know About BOIR

Evan Dumas 

You’re listening to Group Practice Tech, a podcast by Person Centered Tech, where we help mental health group practice owners ethically and effectively leverage tech to improve their practices. I’m your co-host, Evan Dumas.

 

Liath Dalton 

And I’m Liath Dalton, and we are Person Centered Tech.

 

Liath Dalton 

This episode is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Therapy Notes is a robust online practice management and electronic health record system to support you in growing your thriving practice. Therapy Notes is a complete practice management system with all the functionality you need to manage client records, meet with clients remotely, create rich documentation, schedule appointments and bill insurance all right at your fingertips. To get two free months of Therapy Notes as a new Therapy Notes user go to therapynotes.com and use promo code PCT.

 

Evan Dumas 

Hello and welcome to Episode 505: What Group Practice Owners Need to Know about BOIR.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yes,

 

Liath Dalton 

BOIR. In other words, the Beneficial Ownership Information Report, which is something that there was a lot of news about at the kind of end of 2024, beginning of this year of 2025, and we see that there continue to be notices and questions related to it. So we thought we should address why this matters and what what you need to know about it.

 

Liath Dalton 

So it can cut through the noise and be one less thing to be tracking.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Liath Dalton 

So essentially, why it matters is that it was set to be a major new federal reporting requirement for small businesses, including group practices. But then at the last minute, there was, in the last minute actually being December 26th, there was a judicial hold that has paused enforcement. So actually, filing the report is not a requirement and not something that there will be penalties for. So anyway, let’s, let’s talk about what it is and who would have needed to file.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah. So thankfully for you folks who are not group practice owners, it’s not required for solo proprietors and certain businesses that are otherwise regulated, but most LLCs, S corps, other small businesses, which is like most of our group practice customers, would need to file.

 

Liath Dalton 

Exactly, and it is part of the Corporate Transparency Act intended to prevent financialcrimes, essentially, but we’re also we should name the kind of context that we are operating within, currently, in terms of the regulatory landscape. Which is that there is a big move towards deregulation by the current administration. So, and the given the makeup of the Supreme Court, who this is, this requirement and related legislation is soon to be before, and who will be the final arbiters of it, it could very well be that does not go into effect at any point, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

But there’s still been so much news and conversation and questions around it, that it’s important to address and provide accurate information about what is and isn’t applicable, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So we talked about who would have needed to file. And then a little more backstory on how it got put on hold. As we said, on December 26, there was a nationwide injunction that got put in place, and that basically paused the reporting requirements, reversing a decision from three days prior that had briefly reinstated those filing requirements.

 

Liath Dalton 

And if those requirements had been kept in effect, and folks had not filed, then failure to file was correlated with penalties of $500 per day. So, stiff.

 

Evan Dumas 

Oof.

 

Liath Dalton 

And understandably, something that you want to avoid.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm.

 

Liath Dalton 

Which, of course, then became something that scammers,

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

really capitalized on, and still have been trying to capitalize on.

 

Evan Dumas 

Oh, definitely.

 

Liath Dalton 

In terms of saying, you know, they’re taking advantage of that confusion. Sending official looking notices, demanding payment for filing,

 

Evan Dumas 

Yep.

 

Liath Dalton 

or offering to file on your behalf, asking for sensitive business and personal information, which, of course, can then be used for identity theft or fraud.

 

Liath Dalton 

So a note about that, in general, whether or not this reporting requirement eventually does go into effect, which we think is unlikely, is that filing is free, completely free, and takes about 10 minutes to do. And so, while you can voluntarily file if you wanted to, so you know it’s done, because it seems so unlikely that it’s going to go into effect at this point in time, we’re not recommending taking action on it.

 

Liath Dalton 

So what you can do is stay tuned to us. If the requirement to report does go into effect, we will let everybody know.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, totally.

 

Liath Dalton 

You can also monitor on the FinCEN website for updates. And if it does go into effect, then you would be filing through the FinCEN website, and they have a handy, handy guide on how to do that.

 

Liath Dalton 

What you should not do, at this point, is pay third parties to file for you, unless you are working with a trusted legal or financial professional.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

Don’t get caught up in any of the scam notices trying to capitalize on the all the kind of discombobulation around how this has been managed, and take any action to to file through any of those notices. Because it’s going to be some time before this is decided, because it goes before the Supreme Court next.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, that’s gonna be slow.

 

Liath Dalton 

Exactly. And there’s also the potential that Congress may act, because both the Senate and House have reintroduced legislation to permanently relieve small businesses from the requirements.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, which would be great.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yes, I think there’s enough to manage in the regulatory landscape between HIPAA and state law and other considerations without having something additional like this in in the mix. Especially when we know that something, and something that we addressed in our earlier episodes of this podcast season, is the coming Security Rule changes.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

And those are ones that really do translate to, when complied with, fortifying your practice.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah, in a good way!

 

Liath Dalton 

And working in in service of your end goal of making sure the client information is safeguarded. So those are the kinds of regulations we care most about. Ones that actually translate to something specific related to the purposes or needs of your business and our supportive framework for your practice.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

But we thought we should get the BOIR out of out of the way for folks.

 

Evan Dumas 

Mhm, yeah.

 

Liath Dalton 

So hopefully this brings some peace of mind that you can be like, ah, good, I don’t need to worry about that.

 

Evan Dumas 

Yes, yeah, one less thing to do.

 

Liath Dalton 

Yes. See, we don’t always tell you, like, bad news, or add things to your to do list. Sometimes we tell you can take things off your to do list, including monitoring for developments around issues like this.

 

Evan Dumas 

Exactly, exactly. And you know this brings a good point too, about scammers. Of if someone is making you feel more confused or a sense of urgency, and then you have to buy something to remedy that, they don’t have your best interests.

 

Evan Dumas 

Where we try, at Person Centered Tech, to make you less confused about something and less panicked, and then you can make an educated choice of, oh, yes, do you buy a training, do you buy a thing? But only after that confusion is remedied, because it’s very easy to take advantage of people who are stressed. So we, we try to lessen that. So note that that is a big red flag, if you’re ever to encounter someone who’s trying to freak you out.

 

Liath Dalton 

Exactly. I mean, it’s, it’s social engineering, right?

 

Evan Dumas 

Uh huh.

 

Liath Dalton 

Create uh concern, anxiety, distress, fear, and then capitalize on it,

 

Evan Dumas 

Uh huh. Easy to do.

 

Liath Dalton 

by holding out that you offer the only solution, and urgent and immediate action is required.

 

Evan Dumas 

Exactly. No, no sense of immediacy.

 

Liath Dalton 

Nope, nope. All right, folks, thanks for joining us. We hope you found this helpful, and we’ll look forward to chatting with you next week. Take good care.

 

Evan Dumas 

Bye, everybody.

 

Liath Dalton 

This has been Group Practice Tech. You can find us at personcenteredtech.com. For more podcast episodes, you can go to personcenteredtech.com/podcast, or click podcast on the menu bar.