Turning to a collection agency is a great way to recover unpaid and past-due balances. It's essential to find the right one. Regardless of what industry the company is in, if the patients, clients, or customers have unpaid or past-due balances. This is going to hurt the bottom line. If the company is like most, there's a good chance that you don't have the internal resources to follow up and collect on those balances. This emphasizes businesses hiring a healthcare debt collection agency.

Necessary licensing and insurance

For any collection agency to effectively do its job is collecting debts. Therefore, they need to be properly licensed, insured, and, in some states, bonded. In addition, in order for debt recovery services to get licensed, they have to comply with several requirements, giving you added peace of mind that they have all of their ducks in a row.

Approaching the collections process

When it comes to collections, industries have different laws and rules in place. The best way to ensure that a healthcare debt collection agency will follow all of those laws and regulations is to ensure they have worked with other companies in the industry in the past.

Technologically updated

The collection industry has come a long way over the past few years. It's more about becoming efficient and effective than ever, thanks to technological advances. To be precise, skip-tracing technology makes it much easier for collection agencies to track patients or clients. It's more about who has moved without providing the new address.

When looking for the right collection agency, you must ensure they utilize the latest technology. Unfortunately, most medical practices fail to handle the ins and outs of collecting unpaid bills and past-due balances.

Debt collection tools

With the cost associated with turning to a healthcare debt collection agency, many practices find themselves doing whatever they can to handle their collections on their own. The in-house collections typically involve attempting to get the payment fulfilled while the patient is still on the premises, and from there, bills generally get sent via the mail. This may seem innocent, and when the patients believe they are being sent to collections, they may quickly pay their bills.

If the strategy for collecting debt depends on suggesting that bills and payment reminders are coming from another company, it's now the right time to get familiar with the Fair Debt Collection Act. Besides, it's essential to learn the rules that govern debt collection.

Call timing

You can call, text, or send physical letters or emails to the patients about their unpaid bills. But, when calling is a preferred method, you must be careful. Unless the patient has specifically asked you to call during these times, it's never acceptable to call before 8 AM or after 9 PM.

No repeatedly calling

It's unacceptable to call a patient over and over again in a single day to talk about an unpaid debt. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces the Fair Debt Collection Act. It's more about considering repeated and continuous calling to be harassment. When the patient has challenged the bill or disagreed with it in writing, you are not allowed to keep contacting them until the debt has actually been verified.

No calling at the workplace

Taking personal calls at work is unacceptable. This can also be company policies or just the nature of the job. You can no longer do so legally when a patient informs you verbally or in writing that they do not want you to contact them about debt at work.

When to consider hiring a collection agency

There can be many reasons to partner with a healthcare debt collection firm. However, here's what you need to keep in mind as a part of the process.

● Hard time getting patients to pay

Practices with the highest rates of success from a collections standpoint are the ones that can collect when their patients are still physically in practice, either before or after the physician has seen them.

● Patients aren't responding

Not every patient needs to be sent to collections, which is good. It's much more cost-effective for the practice to collect in-house as much as possible. But, there will be patients who won't respond, no matter how many bills you send.

Final Wrap

There are many things to look for in your collection agency. We believe that you need to offer a firm and friendly approach when it comes to collections. Contact us today to know more.