Turning Red to Black Blog

Fowl, potatoes, squash, corn, stuffing, cranberries… The days of the pilgrims bartering with their neighbors have long passed.  In today’s world, you need to be paid in cash – check, credit card, money order or actual, cold, hard cash – not pumpkin pie.  Though I think we can all agree a nice slice of pie can go a long way!  So what’s the best way to prepare for mealtime and ensure that your table will be set with a bountiful revenue return?  Collecting the best information, you possibly can.  Simply put, information is the key to setting your table for improved recovery of your delinquent accounts.

“Don’t be a Scrooge!” Sure, the message can make you feel that way. But everyone can relate to the crunch of the holiday season – debtors and collectors alike. Three months of back-to-back-to-back spends… mostly for our children; oftentimes for our friends and families as well.  We warm up with costumed crusaders and ghoulish traditions, sustained by sugar highs then slowly stewed and simmered through all-day extravaganzas of food and football consumption only to be amped right back up by the blitz of Black Friday and the three following shades of Monday – Cyber, Manic and Green – shot-gunned through a capitalized time warp of purchases and parties and delivered on Christmas Day for a weeklong bookend with New Years. Phew! It’s a great time of year, filled with love if you’re lucky, but it’s also a time when we all feel stress infringing on our time and tugging on our finances.

In our previous blog post we examined the importance of creating an Accounts Receivable Plan for your organization and knowing when to stop spinning your wheels with dead-end accounts and focus on those patients you have working arrangements with. This article will help you do just that – by creating your own plan.

In the third installment of our series of blogs written to help revenue cycle managers and billing managers sell third-party debt collection to their management team we will explore information, technology and security to help you address the concerns of your Chief Information Officer and gain their support for your goal.

If you are reading this article you are on the brink of deciding that it's finally time to bring in a third-party collection agency to handle your hardest non-paying accounts. You may be thinking that it’s an uphill battle to get your executives to buy into your idea and you’re wondering how you’re going to get them on board. You know that doing so will help alleviate the pressures on your billing department by allowing them to refocus on your paying patients and consumers and spend less time spinning their wheels on accounts that simply aren’t going to pay without a more nuanced approach.