Turning Red to Black Blog

We've been in the collections business for a very long time here at Simon's - fifty years to be exact! - and we've picked up a few things along the way. Periodically we will share some of these tips with you as they may help with your overall collection success!

According to the Federal Reserve’s “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2013” report, 87% of the U.S. adult population has a mobile phone and 52% are internet-enabled smartphones. 28% of all mobile phone owners have used mobile banking and 15% reported making a payment using their phone in the 12 months preceding the report (which is most of 2012). Additionally, the most common use of mobile payments was to make an online bill payment.

According to insideARM’s analysis of FICO’s announcement last Thursday that it will recalibrate its FICO Score formula, the debt collection industry will have to adjust to these new measures. But it seems that this will affect medical billers as well. FICO will essentially begin to separate medical collection accounts from all other collections by minimizing the risk to lenders that medical collection accounts represent. While this is somewhat understandable for lenders, it still pushes medical professionals into a corner. Lenders are basically telling consumers we don’t care much if you don’t pay your doctor as long as you pay your mortgage, car lease or credit card bills. Why do medical professionals continually get the shaft?

 The Wall Street Journal this month published a great article by Lawrence H. Summers that outlines why jobs (filled by actual human beings) will not be readily available in the coming decades. Who are we to argue with a former Treasury Secretary? For the most part he’s hitting the nail on the head. Technology is allowing mankind to far exceed what humans have been able to accomplish on their own at just about every level of production. This trend can be seen from the birth of the wheel right through the Industrial Revolution and the advent of computerization in our modern world.

This may seem like an obvious statement but not all businesses employ this principle regularly, if at all.According to a survey conducted by the Harvard Business Review the most surprising element is how dramatically meeting employees’ needs influences performance. A simple “core need” (as identified by the survey) like encouraging employees to take breaks can help an employee to be as much as 50% more engaged with their work when they return. Simply encouraging your employees to take the very breaks they are required by law to take should be very easy to implement.