Guest guest Posted November 19, 2008 Report Share Posted November 19, 2008 The agency we had been using for collections has gone out of business. Does anyone know of one that gives good service? Has any been reporting directly to the credit bureaus? I find that at least one of five who should have this delinquency on their report does not and am tempted to bring this part of the process in house. Other thoughts? It is rare that a problem, but would like an efficient way to take care of matters when the need arises. thanks, jeff jeff overstreet restorative therapies inc delray beach fl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 24, 2010 Report Share Posted February 24, 2010 We have taken a slightly different, but similar, approach to collections. Last July we implemented a " deductible and copay at the time of service " policy which has helped. We work with the patients who are willing to make payments, most often at no interest. We live in Northern Michigan which has an unemployment rate of around 20% and a historically low wage base for those who are working. Attention to the outstanding balances through letters and phone calls and working with patients takes care of most of the outstanding balances. I have spoken with area business people and most are ambivalent about collection agencies. For the last year or so, we have been taking debtors to small claims court. These are what I call " professional non-payers " as they are very adept at not paying and often owe several places in town. This approach has worked well for us. We take 2 - 6 people a month in amounts ranging from $100.00 to $3000.00. About 50% of those will settle with us before the court date. The better we get to know the system, the more useful it is to us. Now there are those who will never pay no matter what. They do not have money and never will. The trick we found is knowing when to stop trying. In small claims court, every step has a dollar figure, so filing a claim is $35.00, a discovery is $15.00, personal service on a subpoena is $50.00, etc... So at some point it becomes throwing good money after bad. I don't think a collections agency would do any better than we do on our own unless they have tricks I don't know about. The area we still struggle with is high deductibles. When we call on a patients benefits, the amount of deductible owing is often wrong. A patient with a $1000.00 deductible policy will owe that $1000.00 to someone whether it is us or the Orthopedist or emergency room etc... Who they owe it to depends on who gets their billing in first for the year. This is the area we flounder in - most often if our bill is first, we have to bill the patient for that amount. It is very difficult to explain this to some patients who just see the fact that they owe us a lot and the orthopedist $30.00. How do other practices handle the deductibles? Bruce Duncan, MSW Thunder Bay Therapy & Sports Medicine Office Manager > > Hi, > > Absolutely agree with Elmer's post. We make the effort to call and be as > helpful as possible to clients initially. We offer reasonable payment plans > for people in real need sometime with minimal or no interest. We have so > few that it does not impact us financially. It took us going through 2 > other agencies in about 4 years but the third time was the charm as we found > a collection agency that did its job and did it well. I always encourage, > even my friends in other businesses, to have a good collection agency on > board. > > > > We try to keep to good customer service standards and we do everything on > our end to collect through appropriate and professional contact from our > clinic. We are satisfied that we did everything possible to work out > payment prior to referring a case to collections. > > > > Finally, an additional point is that if you have a high number of cases > needing to go to collections, I would recommend looking at you pricing and > billing procedures, even if it means getting a consultant. Find out the > reason why so many are not paying. Even with external factors like a lot of > people in your area recently losing jobs or such, you can make business > decisions internally that can help. We have always found that getting some > money, say in a monthly payment plan, is much better than getting nothing or > having to pay 40% of it to a collections agency. > > > > Tom Howell, P.T., M.P.T. > > Howell Physical Therapy > > Eagle, ID > > thowell@... > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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