Let’s face it—debt collection is one of the most dreaded tasks in any healthcare office. It’s time-consuming, frustrating, and often feels like an uphill battle against elusive insurance companies and frustrated patients.
But while chasing payment is unpleasant, you also know it’s absolutely essential to keeping your organization afloat. You’ve probably already tried basic strategies to resolve bad debt, like clarifying your medical billing practices, implementing robust early-out and self-pay strategies, improving patient communication, and streamlining your accounts receivable processes.
Yet, bad debt still looms, and too many balances remain unpaid. Healthcare organizations typically write off 2% – 3% of their revenue annually, which can add up to millions of dollars, depending on the provider. Thirty percent of hospitals, for example, report $10M in bad debt annually. And that doesn’t include the administrative costs of trying to recover what’s owed.
This is why many healthcare organizations turn to debt collection services as a critical step to recover these funds effectively.
The Bad Debt Collection Trade-Off?
Outsourcing bad debt recovery is no doubt an effective way to stimulate cash flow and get your revenue cycle back on track. But outsourcing brings its own set of challenges, particularly when it comes to maintaining patient loyalty and satisfaction.
After all, you don’t want to solve one problem only to create another, such as a firehose of negative patient reviews, or a patient who refuses to use your services again because of poor treatment by the outsource partner.
Here’s the good news: It doesn’t have to be a trade-off. Our team has a decades-long track record of boosting our clients’ bottom lines by as much as 36% while ensuring that patient relationships remain strong.
In fact, our innovative methods have secured over a billion dollars in collections for our clients since 2005.
Curious about how we do it? Read on.
Leveraging Technology for Maximum Debt Recovery
In our approach to debt recovery, the use of technology is a non-negotiable that ensures our collection process is as effective as possible. By analyzing large sets of data, we identify the most appropriate times and channels to connect with patients. This allows us to automate and tailor our communication efforts based on when patients are most likely to engage, whether through phone calls, text messages, or emails.
We also use specialized databases for verifying and updating patient contact information, including skip tracing services to locate people who have changed their contact details. This means that our recovery services remain optimized and consistent, even in cases where patient accounts are incorrect or out of date.
And of course, we use a robust CRM system to organize patient information, track interactions, and manage follow-ups efficiently. This allows us to easily maintain a clear overview of each account, manage follow-ups more effectively, and promptly act on every opportunity for healthcare debt resolution.
The Magic of Empathy: Kindness = Cash Flow
When it comes to collection outsourcing, the wrong approach can do more harm than good. A blunt, transactional conversation (or worse, an outright threat) can quickly escalate, leaving patients feeling frustrated or even humiliated. This kind of experience can lead to negative reviews and damage your reputation, not to mention the relationship you’ve built with your patients.
That’s why we do things differently. Our bad debt recovery services are rooted in empathy, starting with personalized scripts that adapt to the patient’s unique situation. Instead of simply hounding patients and demanding payment, our representatives take a sales-based approach. We focus on understanding the patient’s perspective and offering solutions that make sense for them. Leading with empathy lets us create a conversation that feels more like a dialogue and less like a confrontation.
Finally, we emphasize the value of the care you’ve provided and the positive impact it has had on their lives. We point out that it’s the insurance payers who have created this burden and are profiting from it—not you, the ones who are truly delivering care.
In addition to helping dramatically with collections, this approach also preserves the relationship between the patient and provider. It’s a win-win: Healthcare providers get paid, and patients feel heard, respected, and understood.
Dedicated Reps: A Critical Factor in Medical Collection
One of the biggest differences in our approach is our use of dedicated account representatives. Unlike collection agencies that rotate calls among a pool of agents, we assign specific representatives to handle each account from start to finish. This means that when patients call in or receive follow-up communication, they’re speaking with someone who is already familiar with their case, not a random representative with no connection to the patient, or who needs to be brought up to speed every time.
As we have found, consistency makes a significant difference in both timely collections and patient satisfaction. Patients are more comfortable when they’re talking to someone who fully understands their situation.
Our personalized approach has led to hundreds of five-star reviews, with patients mentioning their representative by name and expressing relief and gratitude for how we handle their accounts.
This dedicated approach also streamlines our internal processes. Account reps can follow a more organized and efficient workflow, resulting in faster resolutions. Overall, it’s a system that benefits everyone involved, particularly patients and clients.
Transparency about the Real Problem in Healthcare: The Payers
Medical bills can leave patients feeling frustrated and even angry, leading them to believe that providers are gouging them. But in reality, it’s the insurance companies that create financial strain. They set complex rules, deny claims, and delay payments, making life difficult for both patients and providers.
Our approach helps patients see that you, the provider, are not the enemy. We explain that everyone—patients and providers alike—are caught in the same web of insurance bureaucracy.
Reframing the conversation this way makes it cooperative rather than adversarial, allowing us to move forward with solutions that work for everyone while placing the blame where it truly belongs.
Training Designed to Maximize Payment and Revenue
Our account representatives go through a rigorous training process to ensure they’re ready for the challenges of payment recovery. They learn how to navigate complex insurance issues, comply with HIPAA regulations, and communicate effectively using neuroscience-based techniques. This prepares them to approach each patient interaction with confidence, skill, and empathy.
But training doesn’t end after those initial weeks. We regularly review call recordings, using AI to analyze speech sentiment and ensure that our standards are consistently met. Our reps receive ongoing training to maintain their knowledge and keep improving their skills. We also monitor communication and collection performance with detailed scorecards and KPIs, giving our team the feedback they need to excel.
Our continuous training and performance tracking ensure that we provide top-notch services, leading to better outcomes for both patients and providers. And our attention to detail puts us in a whole different class from the rest, who typically do not invest in their teams’ development this way.
Outsource Your Recovery and Watch Your Bottom Line Grow
There you have it: Payment recovery done right.
With our proven approach in place, you can stop worrying about bad debt and focus on what really matters: patient care and growing your organization.
How would it feel to have a cash infusion of $250,000 in just a matter of months? How about a 36% increase in your overall revenue, or a 13,000% ROI on your collection efforts?
Those are just a few of the results we’ve achieved for our clients, and we’d love to do the same for you.
Check out our client testimonials and our patient reviews, then get in touch to see how we can keep your patients happy while boosting your bottom line!
