Debt Recovery

We’re experts in school collections and offer a compliant, low-cost, and easy-to-use service that protects your school’s reputation.

Several public and private schools are now struggling with student debt. This includes both elementary schools and high schools. To minimize accounts receivable, the schools need to have a sound debt collection process in place.

Not all collection agencies can efficiently recover money for schools. An inexperienced debt collector may bring bad PR to the school. Schools have their reputation at stake when they hire a third-party collection agency. Therefore collectors have to be amicable, respectful yet firm with their approach.

Proudly Serving Schools Nationwide For a cost-effective debt recovery: Contact us (Special packages: We understand that schools are often tight on budget.) References Available

Parents are very sensitive when the matter is related to their kids. When they realize that a professional collection agency is involved in the context of their children, they will attempt to clear these past due bills at the earliest.

The most common school debts are tuition fees, lunch debt, textbook rentals, laptops, student health, technology fee (broken iPad or Chromebook), meals and lab fees.  Collection agencies should keep costs low or offer special packages designed just for schools. Debt collection for public school districts and private schools involves a lot of patience and persistence.

Collection agencies effectively collect money from those families who can pay but simply avoid paying their legally due obligation. No need to write off your bad debts when a professional collection agency can collect them.

Communicate the fees structure clearly to parents at the beginning of the school year. Provide them with detailed information on what is expected and when payments are due. Offer financial counseling services to parents who are struggling to make payments. Help them understand the importance of education and how they can manage their finances to fulfill their obligations. Offer flexible payment plans for parents who might have difficulty paying the entire amount upfront. This could include installment plans spread over the academic year.

The debt collection methodology for schools is very different from standard recovery methods. Collection agencies cannot use the same aggressive approach they use to recover money for doctors or small businesses.   

Although the school debt crisis is happening all over the USA, some school districts of California, Florida, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire and Maine are particularly distressed due to the non-payment of fees by parents. Students’ lunch debt is particularly troublesome for public schools. Colleges have a tuition loan problem.

They should provide a variety of payment options to parents. Agencies should also explain to parents the consequences of late fees. Send communication multiple times before the payment due date (email, SMS, messaging, etc.). To minimize accounts receivable, schools themself should adopt a friendly, proactive, and sympathetic approach before forwarding the accounts to a collection agency.

Many parents send their kids to private schools and draw private elementary school loans. Usually, middle-class families take primary school loans to pay for private education if they cannot afford it.

There is a huge difference when a collection agency contacts debtors versus when the collection is done under the school’s name. Debtors understand that collection agencies will take many legally compliant actions to recover the debt and will not quickly back off. Collections must be done diplomatically. Therefore it is essential to contact the students or their parents to settle overdue accounts.

If you are looking for a good collection agency for schools: Contact us

 

If you have been ignoring to collect money from those past-due accounts, it can seriously damage the cash flow needed for the smooth functioning of your business. Here are the vital signs that your accounts receivable are already overdue for some serious collection efforts. Your unpaid bills must be assigned to a debt collection agency without further delay.

• You are losing money due to non-payment from your customers.
• More than one customer has failed to pay you.
• You have regularly started getting excuses from your customer, “I am in a meeting, let me call you back“, but the call never comes back.
• Your customer has repeatedly started breaking promises to pay off their current balance on the agreed date.
• Your customers’ checks have bounced repeatedly.
• You and your staff are unfamiliar with collection laws and regulations and unknowingly risk getting sued.
• Many of your accounts are over 90 days past due, and your internal collection efforts have effectively failed. You are losing about 10% money each month on these unpaid invoices as the probability of getting paid decreases with every passing day
  
• Your debtor is untraceable. Neither picking calls and your paper invoices are being returned as “un-deliverable” or “incorrect address“.
• You do not have the staff with enough knowledge to handle collection efforts; they are falling behind or unwilling to handle customer disputes over payment anymore.
• You are spending too much time chasing non-paying customers, time that could have been better utilized expanding your business.
• You are having trouble paying your own creditors because of non-payment from your customers. Accounts receivable have started to hurt you directly.
• You do not have the cash flow to hire new employees, forced to think about the cost-cutting measures or lack of money to purchase a piece of new equipment.
• If you have customers located all over USA, and you are finding it hard to track them.
• You got a favorable judgment from the small claims court, yet you are not getting paid by the debtor.
• A customer has falsely started pinpointing gaps in your service or how bad your product is. However, you know clearly that is not true.
• Ignoring accounts receivable has complicated the situation and can only be handled by an expert third party like a debt collection agency.

No one wants to be called by a debt collector, even if there is a legitimate reason for the call.

Debt collection agencies have resources, staff and tools to locate people, find their assets, collect money from accounts receivable and even take them to court if required.

Ignoring accounts receivable is a mistake as it will only hurt your business. It is crucial to have a company policy on how to handle accounts receivable.

The logistics industry is the backbone of nearly every business in the USA. The challenges trucking companies face have grown significantly in the last decade. Trucking companies have been experiencing severe distress due to competition, regulations, limited workforce, and overdue accounts receivable.

Serving Logistics Companies Nationwide. High Recovery Rates. Need a Collection Agency? Contact Us

Common issues faced by Logistics/Trucking companies include

• Unpredictable fuel costs and competition
• Driver shortage, employee retention and truck parking issues
• Customers expect greater tracking of their goods, resulting in increased expectations and unwillingness to pay for any additional expenses.
• Ups and Downs in the economic cycle cause significant demand variation.
• Adherence to government laws.
• Compliance with environmental laws like anti-idling and other emission reduction regulations.
• Difficult to implement newer technology and business process improvements.
• ELD Mandate and Hours-of-Service rules.
• Controlling operating costs
• Dispsute over services
• Client bankruptcies

But far the biggest challenge faced by trucking companies is accounts receivable. Other business challenges are still controllable, but a client’s non-payment ( or delayed payment) after the service has been provided can exert tremendous pressure on trucking companies.

They have to pay for insurance, driver salaries and recurring expenses, regardless of whether the owner gets paid on time by its client. If your trucking business and facing cash flow challenges, invoice factoring may be worth it despite its expense.

Trucking companies have a small back office clerical staff and are certainly not trained to handle tough debt collections. Debt collection is further divided into Commercial and Consumer collections.

After 60-90 days have passed due to non-payment, transferring the account to a debt collection agency is highly recommended.

A debt collection agency will attempt to understand the root cause of debt and try to find solutions that may include getting paid in installments. They will always adopt a diplomatic approach to preserve your client’s relationship. They have various tools and tricks to settle the account, after all that is what collectors do all day long.

For Commercial Collections, the contingency fee is usually between 25% to 40% depending on the outstanding debt. For Consumer collections, a collection agency will typically send low-cost collection letters before switching to contingency collection that costs 40% of the amount recovered.

The biggest mistake trucking companies make is waiting longer for the payment, hoping they will magically get paid. If a client has not paid for 90 days, the likelihood of them paying goes down substantially.

The involvement of a collection agency puts tremendous pressure on your debtor, due to the very fact that they know that Collection Agencies are skilled debt collectors. If required, the matter can be forwarded to an attorney who will work on getting a court ruling that allows garnishments, liquidations and other tactics that force a recovery. Debt collectors with experience dealing with logistics companies’ delinquent customers can easily handle debtor excuses very well.

Collection agencies consider logistics debt a good paper since the average recovery rate is higher than in other industries.

Collection Letters Service

Upfront cost for 5 Collection Letters is about $15 per account. Debtors pay directly to you, no other fees. Low-cost option. Good for accounts less than 120 days past due.

Collection Calls Service

Contingency fee only. No upfront or other fees. Agency gets paid a portion of the money they recover.  No recovery-No fees. Best for accounts over 120 days. A debt collector calls your debtor many times. If everything fails, a possible Legal Suit is recommended by the attorney.

Contact us for your debt collection needs.

The market size home and office security systems industry is expected to reach $84 billion by 2027. Nearly 50,000 businesses employ over 200,000 people in the Security Alarm Services industry. Johnson Controls and ADT have the largest market share.

The security industry, in particular, is facing ever-increasing challenges due to:

• Rapid changes in technology and up-gradation costs.
• Finding & retaining top talent and wage pressures.
• Cyber intrusions and security.
• Challenges related to newer technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), AI, VoIP and Cloud-based adoption.
• Ever-changing privacy laws and compliance issues.
• Reducing the alarm signal transmissions and challenges to minimize false alarm incidents.
• Newcomers are rewriting the rules and further increasing competition.
• Bundling of services and demand for fewer but smarter cameras.
• Customers are getting less loyal and more price-savvy.

But the biggest issue faced by the security industry is the non-payment of bills by customers on time.

Contact us for your debt collection needs Serving all across USA

A large number of past-due accounts receivable impacts the profit margins of security companies substantially, sometimes even restricting the cash flow required for day-to-day operations. Once an account is 90 days overdue, the likely hood of getting paid directly from the customer reduces drastically. It is recommended to transfer such accounts to a collection agency after 90 days of non-payment.

Collection Demands Service

Upfront cost for 5 Collection Letters is about $15 per account. Debtors pay directly to you, no other fees, and a low-cost option. Good for accounts less than 120 days past due.

Collection Calls Service

Contingency fee only. No upfront or other fees. Agency gets paid a portion of the money they recover.  No recovery-No fees. Best suited for accounts over 120 days. A debt collector calls debtor many times. If everything fails, a possible Legal Suit if recommended by the attorney.

Most collections for home security fall under Individual/Consumer Collections, while office recoveries fall under Commercial Collections. Delinquent accounts restrict the ability to run a business as usual and, more importantly, take the focus away from acquiring new customers. The in-house staff of security companies is not professionally trained to handle debt collection, nor are they aware of federal laws involved in recovering unpaid bills. Making repetitive calls or sending invoices is a very demotivating and frustrating task for in-house employees.

A collection agency armed with their diplomatic collection demands and intensive collection calls attempts to collect debt professionally. The internal staff of security and alarm systems companies cannot beat their cost and effectiveness for recovering money.

Check here: Cost of hiring a collections agency

Outsourcing your overdue accounts receivable to a Collections Agency will save you time and energy and help you recover a significant chunk your customer owes.

Transferring your overdue receivables will also reduce your stress and make you more legally compliant with all the state and federal debt collection laws and significantly lower your chances of getting sued back by your debtor. Here are all the benefits of involving a collection agency versus having your in-house staff deal with past-due accounts.

Need a Collection Agency? Contact us to recover your unpaid bills

• These two-letter words “Collection Agency” have a similar impact on debtors, like when you are speeding and you see a “Cop“. You suddenly slow down and start following all the rules. When a debtor understands that unpaid bills are being handled by a collection agency, the probability of getting paid suddenly increases.
• You cannot handle debtors’ excuses well enough, but Collection Agencies deal with all sorts of excuses all day long. Here is the list of the most common debtor excuses.
• You do not have a subscription to the expensive services used by Collection Agencies that assist in recovering money from accounts receivable. For example, they Skip Trace every debtor to find his latest address or to know if he is bankrupt.
• Focus on your critical growth activities rather than collection activities. I guarantee that no one in your company likes to follow up again and again with debtors who are late on payments.
• Collection agencies are experts in recovering money, your in-house staff is not. Outsourcing accounts receivable to a good collection agency will maximize the chances of recovery and improve your cash flow.
• Are you trying to collect money from a debtor with a history of filing lawsuits? Collection agencies perform a “Litigious Debtor” check to minimize the litigation risk.
• Save money on labor costs because you can never beat the invoicing cost of a collection agency, which is roughly $15 for 5 diplomatically crafted yet firmly written collection letters. They include various scrubs and tons of other checks.
• If you prefer using only the contingency-based “Collector Calls” service, go for it. You do not need to spend a penny from your pocket. If the collection agency recovers money, they only get to keep a smaller portion of the amount recovered.
• The faster you transmit your accounts receivable to a collection agency, the higher the chances are of recovering money. The chances of collecting money from a 90-day old debt are way higher versus waiting for nine months and then transferring.
• There are many federal and state laws on collecting money from debtors, and failing to follow those can be risky and costly. Collection agencies train their staff regularly on these rules and regulations.
• Collection agencies can accept payments online, and in many other forms, lot more ways than your office can accept money. They can also negotiate with the debtor to pay in installments if required.
• Most collection agencies are so confident of their service that they will offer a written guarantee for their Letters Service, else they refund most of your money back.
• Agencies can report unpaid accounts to credit reporting agencies like Equifax, Transunion and Experian.
• Collection agencies have staff performing collection activities in both English and Spanish. Can your own staff do that?
• They can also file a legal suit to collect money from the hardest accounts while you remain stress-free.
• Collection agencies sometimes check the credit history report to verify the creditworthiness of your debtor to determine if they will pay soon enough or not.
• Maybe you haven’t tried outsourcing accounts receivable yet, or your collection agency is not up to the mark. Contact us, and you will be connected with a collection agency with low contingency rates and recovery rates far above the industry average at no cost to you.
• Your in-house staff must be frustrated by making reminder calls and repeatedly sending invoices. Outsourcing accounts receivable to an external collection agency will allow them to focus on the core responsibilities of your business.

There is an ever-growing market for outsourcing contact center solutions. Developing an outsourcing strategy into an ARM solution allows enterprises to differentiate themselves, provide a comprehensive customer experience, and reduce costs.

Most companies need to hone their niche products and services, which often means they cannot afford to spread their core competencies thin. Now more than ever, being lean and flexible demands focus on what you do best and outsourcing all the rest.

By definition, outsourcing is the strategic use of outside resources where it does not make financial or functional sense to carry out those activities internally. Outsourcing enables businesses to gain skills and services that are hard to find or develop due to resource constraints. First-party outsourcing provides the client with a seamless extension of internal operations for new or old projects that are too overwhelming to manage.

Uplift Your Brand

Outsourcing is an efficient way to boost a company’s brand and fast-track business goals. It allows companies to create a worldwide platform to launch products and promote the company name without needlessly shelling out hard-earned revenue. By contrast, investing in a trained and certified customer service team communicates to customers that a company is willing to put its best foot forward. The message to customers is “your satisfaction matters.” Companies can choose between making internal resources pull double duty on the phones while other projects are on hold or leveraging staff who have chosen customer service representatives as a vocation. Just imagine who will have a more positive impact. Outsourcing to customer service specialists will have a ripple effect of goodwill that reflects exponentially on the brand’s positive reputation.

Worldwide Talent Pool and Lower Support Costs

Companies gain access to a worldwide talent pool in an overseas outsourcing model. This allows them to expand their language capabilities and add “follow the sun” 24/7 coverage, ensuring the representatives handling inbound and outbound calls are always alert and upbeat. Drawing from global talent sources offers unique perspectives on problem resolution. In addition, offshore staffing costs remain, as always, much lower than similar services delivered by their domestic counterparts. In a global economy where remote monitoring tools and VPN connectivity level the playing field, cost savings are substantial.

More Versatility and Proficiency

Dipping into another talent pool also means access to different skill sets. When an in-house team specializes in specific core competencies, it is not always easy to pivot customer service functions to support a new product or service launch. A BPO team can help organizations drill down their expertise by handling custom campaigns with greater proficiency. It starts with building a comprehensive, ever-evolving knowledgebase or FAQ library, enabling representatives to expand their issue resolution or customer inquiry repertoire. Over time, those inbound and outbound dialogues become more effortless and second nature as representatives reinforce credibility and knowledge with customers. Since they are often the “department of first impressions,” call center representatives can make or break a company’s brand.

Greater Scalability

Organizations that experience fluctuating or seasonal call volumes find it difficult to adequately staff up or down to meet the peaks and valleys in demand. They also find it is costlier to bring on Full Time Employees (FTEs) over the short term. Not only does this approach strain internal resources to recruit, train, and manage those representatives, but call volumes may take a nosedive when new hire productivity ramps up. Outsourcing to a BPO team creates an overflow mechanism when inbound and outbound activities are less steady stream and more Murphy’s Law.

Redundant Tools and Systems

When force majeure becomes a force to be reckoned with, having redundant tools and systems is the ultimate “better safe than sorry” approach. Why settle for one set of telephony, ticketing system, or data center when an outsourcing partner can integrate with and replicate crucial systems, literally flipping a switch in the event of an outage? Outsourced service providers can safeguard intellectual property and ensure the most resilient service possible. BPO platforms and data are typically hosted in hardened, Tier IV data centers, which are good enough to store crucial data for the likes of Google, Intel, and Deloitte. Getting on board with an outsourcing partner that invests tens of millions of dollars in Business Continuity Planning tools and systems means never compromising on IT data security.

Enhanced Competitiveness and Productivity in a Post-COVID-19 Economy

Outsourcing increases the competitiveness and productivity of a company and allows growth over competitors. A budget-friendly, hassle-free, time-efficient and balanced way of increasing productivity is outsourcing. The turnaround time for projects is easily truncated with the help of outsourcing. Leveraging an outsourcing partner enables internal staff to complete their work on time without compromising quality.

Simply put, outsourcing is a way to enhance productivity and efficiency by drilling down on internal functions that have the best ROI and offloading those that do not.

The truth is the post-COVID economy has forced the hand of outsourcing as an ever more valid business strategy. As companies scramble to stay more connected and get more done while being further and further apart, outsourcing has built a case as the new normal for how we should conduct business today. And it is not an option that is likely to go away soon. Despite the social distancing, an outsourcing partnership remains close at hand.

The administrative costs of collecting money increase as time passes, and the likelihood of a patient paying decreases. It is advisable to forward any medical balances over 90 days overdue to a collection agency to recover money on past-due accounts.

Transferring delinquent accounts directly from your AthenaNet Patient Portal to an Athena-approved and recommended collection agency streamlines the collection activity of medical practices. 

In other words, you don’t need to reenter information about your delinquent patients into the collection agency’s portal. Accounts can be transferred automatically from Athenanet to the Collections portal in one click! No account goes to the collection agency without your knowledge. You create your own  transfer preference (also called policy).

Get an almost two times higher recovery rate than your current collection agency. Contact us for a free 10 minutes consultation.

Serving AthenaHealth Practices Nationwide Recover unpaid medical bills: Contact Us $9.75 for five Collection Demands. Contingency fees flat 40%

A 15-minute integration automates the transfer of unpaid medical bills from Athenanet to collections. Using the diplomatic collections approach with patients results in better recovery rates without damaging the doctor-patient relationship.  All debt collectors are located in USA, resulting in 2-3 times higher recovery than you get from your existing agency.

By mentioning that you are a Medical practice, Urgent care center, or Hospital, using the AthenaHealth billing platform qualifies you for really low debt collection fees.

Practices can be assured that the same effort is applied to each account regardless of the balance. Payments are automatically updated daily, and there are no minimum volume requirements. These collection activities seamlessly integrate with your AthenaNet patient portal.  This takes only about 15 minutes to set up.

This also allows you to automate your collection policies. The medical practice remains in control of which accounts get transferred for collections. This includes payment posting, closing out of accounts, pausing collections, marking as paid-in-full, and tracking performance. All information is updated daily on a nightly basis. All payments are posted directly using secure channels and your AthenaNet account.

Practices can be assured of superior collection results while maintaining office efficiency. This automated process will lower your internal costs and free up your in-house staff, who are not professionally trained to perform collection activities.

Only a few prestigious collection agencies have qualified for AthenaHealth’s debt collection standards. Need one?

Contact us today if you want a lower-cost collection agency providing superior recovery rates for AthenaHealth practices. Please mention in the “notes” section that you use AthenaHealth to qualify for a special rate of $9.75 per account.

Features and Cost

– A special price for AthenaHealth practices is only $9.75 per account for the Collection Letters service. Already serving more than 100 AthenaHealth medical practices. Higher volume lowers this price even further.

– Five collection letters are sent every few days in colored print, including a provision to send a “Thank you” letter after the patient pays in full.

– Change of Address, Bankruptcy check and Litigious patient check are performed on all accounts. “Litigious patient scrub” minimizes the chances of lawsuits that a patient can file on medical practices.

– FDCPA, TCPA, GLBA and HIPAA Complaint

– A 24×7 client portal with PCI/SOC cybersecurity standards is additionally available.

– A low contingency cost of no more than 40% is charged for the Collection Calls service.

– Collection activity can be performed in both English and Spanish.

– No setup fee, minimum volume, hidden cost, or contract length.

– Most practices are set up under the Pay-as-used billing scheme.

– Friendly collection practices, state-of-the-art technology and vast healthcare collections experience.

– Licensed, bonded and insured. Collecting money across all 50 states.

Use our “Contact Us“ form and we will have a well-trained professional with several years of experience in setting up AthenaHealth accounts for the Collection Letters and/or Collection Calls service. 

Start using this service today, or switch from your collections provider and see the difference.

We have carefully shortlisted an AthenaHealth-approved collection agency based on its performance, pricing and experience of the management & staff. It already serves over 100 medical practices using AthenaHealth and consistently delivers high recovery rates. After you submit our “Contact us” form, we will promptly connect you with them at no extra cost.