Handling medical debt collections is an important but weighty matter. After all, no one loves hearing that they need to pay an outstanding bill, right? However, medical debt collections are an unavoidable responsibility for every healthcare provider. Making sure that it is handled effectively is crucial to receiving the highest amount of money possible for the services you’ve doled out. And healthcare collection agencies can help.
Whether you’ve tried handling your collections yourself and aren’t satisfied with the results or you’re contemplating hiring a collection agency but are not sure if it’s worth it, we’ve gathered information to showcase healthcare collection agencies’ effectiveness and why it may be time for you to outsource your collections.
They’ve got documentation down to a T.
No matter how much a healthcare collection agency collects for you, they’ll provide helpful documentation for all of your patients’ collection cases as well as the exact amounts of outstanding bills that remain. This documentation is helpful in following up to collect as well as taking the cases to court to get the money that is outstanding if your customer refuses to pay.
They get the flack instead of you.
When you hire a third-party agency to do your collections, you can have them sign their name on your behalf instead of signing as you. This will make sure that your billing staff and providers won’t get all the flack if customers are unhappy with the collection process. While this hopefully won’t happen at all, having an agency looked down upon instead of your business is an advantage.
They’re trained in handling difficult collections.
Difficult collections can be a headache, but healthcare collection agencies are specifically trained in ways to navigate any number of situations that your patient may present. Collection agency representatives speak with empathy, honesty, and respect. They will provide superior customer service and support to work with even the most difficult customers to find a solution to collecting the outstanding debt. While you or your staff may scramble for words when dealing with a difficult case, the agency knows exactly what to do when things go awry.
They can maximize your collections by providing multiple solutions.
Maximizing your collections while maintaining your patient-provider relationships is what you want at the end of the day. Healthcare collection agencies can help you do just that. Healthcare collections agencies can often offer multiple repayment plans that you might not be able to provide without hiring them. They’re also great at explaining these options and being flexible with the patients’ abilities to pay any outstanding amounts. The cumulative combination of these payment opportunities and their trained representatives increases the likelihood that they can maximize your collections to a degree that you don’t have the capability to reach without their help.
While healthcare collection agencies are largely effective, they’re effectiveness for you in particular is really dependent on your situation and your needs. Paying for a collection agency may or may not be worth the cost, but only you can decide that. However, if you’d rather concentrate your staff’s time elsewhere and maximize your collections, a healthcare collection agency may be the solution for you! Contact Frost-Arnett at (855) 287-7043 to discuss if our agency is a good fit for you and your needs.