Technology

New York Medical & Healthcare Debt Collection Agency

New York’s healthcare debt collection process has changed throughout the years. Doctors in NY have to deal with a high cost of living, burnout, regulatory challenges, insurance reimbursement issues and significant health disparities based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other factors. Addressing these disparities can be a complex and challenging task.

Medical professionals continue to grapple with elevated levels of accounts receivable, impacting their profitability and sustainability. Most of these debts come from doctors, dentists and ambulance rides. Hiring a collection agency will de-stress your staff and give them time to focus on the core tasks for which they were hired in the first place.

Need a Medical Collection Agency in New York: Contact us

New York has its own set of laws that supplement the FDCPA. The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs enforces the city’s own debt collection regulations, which offer protections beyond the federal FDCPA.

Here are some key aspects of New York’s debt collection laws:

Licensing Requirement: In New York City, all debt collection agencies must be licensed by the Department of Consumer Affairs.
Statute of Limitations: In New York, the statute of limitations on debt varies depending on the type of debt. The statute of limitations for most consumer debts, such as credit card debt, is six years. Once this period has passed, the debt becomes “time-barred,” meaning the creditor or collector can’t successfully sue the debtor to collect the debt.
Debt Validation: Debt collectors are required to validate the debt. If you request it, they must provide written verification of the debt.
Communication: Collectors must respect consumers’ wishes about when and how to contact them. If you request in writing that a collector stop contacting you or contact you only through a lawyer, they must comply with this request.
Harassment and Abusive Practices: Both the FDCPA and New York law prohibit debt collectors from harassing, oppressing, or abusing any person in connection with the collection of a debt.
Unfair Practices: Debt collectors are prohibited from using unfair or unconscionable means to collect or attempt to collect a debt.
Garnishment and Property Seizure: If a creditor obtains a court judgment against a debtor, they may be able to garnish wages or seize certain assets. However, New York law provides certain exemptions.

New York Medical and Health Care Debt Collection Statistics

Almost half of the country is in debt, with the majority of those unpaid balances coming from medical bills. The average unpaid medical debt balance averages out to about $580. A vast majority of New Yorkers (about 15%) have found that they have received emergency treatment within the course of a few months. However, around 7% of those patients are uninsured.

The 2016 report showed that 7% of patients between the ages of 19 and 64 are uninsured. While this number has seen a decrease in 2012, this number still negatively affects doctors and hospitals who find these patients have no immediate way to pay for their medical expenses. Eventually, these doctors will send off their unpaid accounts to a New York medical debt collection agency.

Problems Faced by New York Doctors and Hospitals

Even though doctors and hospitals can save face with their patients by sending them to collections, it still causes an imbalance in their business expenses.

Lack of payment can lead to staff cuts, longer hours, and debt of their own. Hospitals have tried to remedy this loss by cutting back on necessary medical equipment, staffing hours, and even payment. This can often lead to insufficient care from overworked doctors or lack of available services in lieu of proper medical equipment. Doctors have also realized that their salaries are being more narrowly negotiated because hospitals can’t afford to pay doctors at a higher wage if the patient debt is too large.

New York Debt Collection Medical Laws

Around 2006, New York set laws to protect patients from aggressive debt collection calls.

New York law also dictates that medical institutions and professionals must provide patients with the option for payment plans and/or alternative payment options.

The Statute of Limitations for New York is six years. This refers to the amount of time a medical establishment has to sue a patient for non-payment. The clock starts ticking the moment the patient receives their first bill and restarts after their most recent payment.

Medical debt still affects a patient’s credit score. Doctors typically do not personally sue their patients for unpaid bills, rather, they sell their unpaid patient expenses to a debt collection agency. The agency will contact the former patients for payment.

There are now strict rules against debt collectors about contacting patients for medical and health care debt collections. They cannot harass, bully, or contact patients in unethical manners to try to procure a form of payment. And according to The Atlantic, “New York and eight other states have passed comprehensive laws protecting patients from surprise billing.”

References:
thefinancialclinic.org/medical-debt-collection-know-your-rights/

https://www.credit.com/credit-scores/how-medical-debt-can-impact-your-credit-score/

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2017/mar/insurance-coverage-access-care-and-medical-debt-aca-look

New York City

Top 10 Technology Risks to your Healthcare Business

Technology is having amazing effects on so many fields and industries and changing things, in most cases, for the better. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the medical field. Technology allows medical practices to work smarter, faster and safer than ever before. While this is all true, that doesn’t mean that technology comes completely free of risks. The pace of innovation and adoption moves so fast that sometimes, even with incredibly important and useful technology, there can still be some unintended and unexpected risks. Here are the top 10 technology risks to your healthcare business.

Patient Record Security – Probably the #1 concern as medical practices use the servers and the cloud more and more often to store secure patient records. A data breach that exposes your patient’s confidential information can lead to all types of problems from the tangible to the moral. Making sure your patient’s data is secure is a top priority.

Regulatory Risks – Especially for digital health companies, dealing with local, state, and federal regulations can be incredibly complex. This includes complying with state licensing and practice requirements, handling numerous government payers and uncovered claims, answering state medical board actions, reconciling billing errors, and HIPAA compliance.

Outdated Software – Having too much technology can have its issues but so can not having enough or enough up-to-date technology. The biggest problem with this is security. Data thieves prey on businesses with outdated networks, operating systems, and security. If you are still using older systems for any reason, you are putting yourself at risk.

Network Downtime – As healthcare offices and practices rely more on their networks for everything from patient records to in-office communication, the specter of network downtime looms large. If your network goes down it can grind your office e to a standstill so make sure you and your IT partner do everything in your power to stop downtime and have a backup plan in the event it happens.

Internet of Things – As connected medical devices become more prevalent thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT), so does the possibility that these life-saving devices can be susceptible to either user programming error or network error is a problem. Like with other technology, fail-safes are important to consider in conjunction with IoT devices.

Telemedicine – Being able to administer care over a smartphone or computer screen adds a level of convenience and immediacy that is great for the healthcare industry. The risk in this though is that medicine is and always has been a hands-on practice. The challenge of keeping the level and quality of care high enough through a screen can be difficult.

Wearable Technology – Nowadays almost everyone can monitor what is going on in their body on their wrist or from their smartphone. This information can be immediately communicated to doctors for review. This creates a situation where patients may expect reports, feedback, and actions from doctors immediately when it is not needed. Managing expectations here is paramount.

Physical Injury – Lifesaving medical equipment is one of the best things that new technology offers. However, knowing how to use this new technology safely and effectively is so important. When doctors use new equipment or instruments that they are not familiar with, the possibility of patient injury rises. Making sure everyone who uses this new equipment is properly trained on proper usage and safety is a must.

Web Diagnosis – Websites like WebMD are a blessing and a curse to the medical professions, Yes, they help patients be more informed and engaged in their health and their treatments. On the flip side, they turn everyone into their own medical professional which can have dangerous consequences. Having patients keep in mind who the professional is can be challenging at times.

Training and Adoption – The problems and risks with most new technology is not actually the technology. The issue is very often user error. In medical practice, you have people of all ages, from all backgrounds, and with different skill levels when it comes to using and adapting to new technology. You must constantly make sure everyone is informed, properly trained, and up to date on the latest best practices and standard operating procedures of what your practice is doing. This will help alleviate many of the problems above before they arise.

Conclusion

New technology has, on balance, been a huge benefit for the medical industry. If you familiarize yourself with the risks and take steps to mitigate them, your office, practice or hospital can reap incredible benefits.

Finding New Customers through SEO Blog Writing

We get it; you’re sick of hearing the term “SEO” as an empty guideline to help your business. You’ve also heard many success stories how your competitors are able to bring in customers online through a website, SEO and blogging. As an entrepreneur, you probably don’t have the time to do your own marketing— even lesser time to research and execute practices like SEO blog writing for your company.

But I bet you are curious what all the fuss is about, right?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In simple terms, Blog is a bunch of well written informative articles published online on your website. SEO is a strategy to make sure those articles reach to maximum people browsing the internet. If people find those articles interesting, they my check out rest of your website and may eventually become your customer. To execute this strategy your articles should do well on Search Engines like Google and Bing. You may promote your website and articles on Social Media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn too.

The process of blogging is a simple strategy, widely used by businesses of all sizes by outsourcing the work to marketing companies. These marketing companies typically provide 3-4 articles a month which are then published on the “blog” section of your website.

Most Fortune 500 companies incessantly preach this method (which we’ll get to later), without really explaining what it is or how they use it. That’s why we decided to break that barrier and fully explain to you what SEO is, why your company needs blogs, and how it works to help get more clients through the door.

So whether you are a dentist, a doctor, a small business owner, a lawyer, or a boutique shop owner, buckle in: we’re about to spill the beans on how blog writing actually bring in customers.

Why Blogs, WHY?

Yes, you’ve heard it before: you need blogs on your company’s website if you want to attract more followers and clients. But has anyone ever really told you why, exactly?

Blogs implement SEO (search engine optimization) tactics in order for your company’s website to rank on the front page of Google. Think about it: how many people look to Google’s second page if they’re searching for a local dentist? Barely any.

This means that even if you show up at the top of the second page, essentially nobody will see it. That’s why you need to understand (or hire someone who understands) SEO because it can double your client base, while simultaneously garnering you repeat business.

It Actually Does Bring In More Customers

Let’s take a medical professional as an example.

Dr. Dolittle has been one of the best known pediatric dentists in his region for twenty years. He has built up his clientele by old-fashioned word-of-mouth and business is good.

But suddenly, Dr. Dolittle has to move across the country and start up a new practice. Now he doesn’t have his local notoriety to back him up and he finds himself up against all the other local dentists who have an established reputation. How can he possibly compete with them?

That’s where blogs come into play.

If a nearby mother decides to type in “does my child have a tooth infection?” the first links that Google will show her are numbers and addresses of local dentist offices and maybe some ad links. Generally speaking, most Google users will skip over ad links and skip right down to the first couple of articles.

So Mom skims right past those ads and goes for the first organic blog she finds. It will probably be titled something along the lines of, “Signs Your Child Has A Tooth Infection.” It looks simple, to the point, and it answers her question. She clicks on it, and guess who’s website she’s on?

Dr. Dolittle’s.

Now Dr. Dolittle has a leg up on his competition because he’s giving direct answers to the Local Mom. She reads the blog and likes it, decides not to wait, and calls Dr. Dolittle’s office directly to set up an appointment.

Still Don’t Understand Why You Need SEO Blog Writing For Your Company?

Now, to be frank, the likelihood of the above scenario playing out exactly like that is pretty rare. Mom will probably look through a couple of articles and then decide her child is fine or maybe she will just call her usual pediatric dentist. But now she recognizes Dr. Dolittle as an expert in his practice and she’ll have him in mind in case she has any other questions.

Why Your Customers Will Appreciate Blogs

Having blogs on your professional website may not get you ranked on Google’s front page right away, but it will help set a precedent. These blogs can be useful bits of information that you can give to your clients so that you don’t have to waste time on the phone explaining a simple process. Your blogs also serve as a reminder that you are knowledgeable in your profession. It can help customers trust and appreciate you more than your competitors.

How SEO Is Used In Blogs

We’ve already discussed how blogs have the potential to bring in more customers and why your customers will appreciate this extra information. But how do SEO blog writing services technically work?

In order for SEO to work, you have to pick one keyword or phrase for your blog. For Dr. Dolittle, he may have used “child tooth infection” or even the full “signs your child has a tooth infection.” Essentially just key phrases that someone might type into Google. Then, the blog has to use those terms a predetermined amount of times (depending on how long the blog is) and this helps Google pick up the article and slowly move it to the front page.

When Your Blog Will Rank On Google

The only way your blog will rank on Google is by using SEO expertly and by posting blogs often.

Most business owners are under the assumption that they can pay a couple of hundred dollars for a handful of blogs, pop them on their website, and that’s all there is to it. Now they have blogs that will work their “magic” to help the business grow.

These are the same people who will probably say (later down the line) that blogs didn’t really do anything for their business.

Business owners know better than anyone when something sounds too good to be true. Spending a few hours on a blog or two and expecting it to bring you daily clients is unrealistic and impractical. These blogs aren’t working because they just threw them on the back burner, hoping they would blend themselves together and offer them a full-course meal without having to pick up a spatula.

But the thing is, these blogs will get buried underneath the other 500,000 blog posts on the same topic. That is unless SEO is implemented, the blogs are consistent, and they are being marketed effectively.

Who Should You Hire For SEO Blog Writing

This article is already long enough, and I bet you’re feeling overwhelmed. That’s because you’re trying to take in and figure out an entire profession.

Like most entrepreneurs, you probably want to be able to use this simple technique by yourself. However, there is a lot more that goes into blog writing than meets the eye, which is why you should leave this work to the professionals.

So how do you find SEO blog writing services for your company?
Many Fortune 500 companies have it in their budget to bring on a full-fledged marketing team, but if you’re a stand-alone local business, there’s no need to do that. All you need is one reliable writer.

You can find professional writers on freelance platforms like Freelancer.com, Fiverr and UpWork. However, be wary of these sites. Anyone can sign up, and generally the cheaper the blogs are, the less quality and SEO they will contain.

If you decide to use freelance platforms, do your research. Read their reviews and interview them before you hire them on for the job. You’ll know when you’ve found the right match. Especially when their SEO blog writing services start turning out a better ROI for your company.

Big Companies Who Do SEO Blog Writing

Now that you have a basic understanding of the benefits of posting blogs, let’s analyze which other companies believe in these practices. Here is a list of Fortune 500 companies who know the value of using blogs for better company recognition:

Amazon, Apple Newsroom , Nike News, Best Buy Blog, Disney Parks Blog

Now it’s time to do a bit of your own research. Do your competitors have blogs on their website? If they don’t, then you better act fast before they find out that the secret to success may be as simple as SEO blog writing.

How to Create an Impressive Dental Website: Get new patients

Dental practices are always looking for ways to get new patients. Following are proven techniques in today’s digital era to acquire new clients online through a Website, Search Engine Marketing (SEO), Paid Advertising, Press Releases, and Social Media Marketing.

A good website is like having the best salesperson, working for you 24×7. Every time a new person visits your dental website, he is a potential customer.

Effective marketing is an investment, not an expense. Initially, you may be reluctant to spend money on your website until you start getting leads through it. Once you launch your website, be patient for at least six months to 1 year before you see meaningful results. Keep your website ticking with new information and articles.

Summary:
Owning a dental website 15-20 years back use to quite impress people, but these days it’s an essential commodity for any business, else you clearly appear outdated.

Internet presence includes:
– A personal domain name (ex: “dr-joe.com“),
– A branded email address ( ex: contact@dr-joe.com instead of dr.john.doe@Yahoo.com) and
– An impressive website.

The objective of this article:

Our attempt is to give you

A hands-on practical approach to build a website (using a freelancer), enough to give you some basic technical know-how.
Avoid getting ripped off, or paying too much to website developers.
Sufficient information to talk some technical stuff with your website developer.

I am not getting any commission or financial benefit by recommending you the following resources needed to build your website. My very own experience of building and running a moderate to high traffic website is being shared here.

Step 1. Register a Domain name, Buy hosting etc. : Do it yourself.

It is VERY important to keep the domain and hosting under your own ownership and later share your username and password with your website developer/freelancer. This also allows you to easily switch website developers if you do not like the first one. Don’t use the “hosting space” of your website developer; otherwise you may feel being trapped in using his services forever.

My recommendation: ( this is what we use)

1. Domain registrar: Godaddy (About $15 per year)

2. Hosting: Godaddy’s Linux Ultimate Shared hosting

( https://www.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting
About $17 per month, do not go for cheaper plans.).

3. SSL Certificate ($80 per year): GoDaddy will provide it.

This combination gives me excellent performance. Other than the initial website development/SEO costs, the ongoing cost of running your dental website will be about $300 per year. I have been using GoDaddy for the last 14 years.

Making the purchase:

First, go to https://www.godaddy.com and create a free account with your email/password/phone. Do not buy anything yet.

Second, go to this website https://instantdomainsearch.com/ , find a “.com” domain that you like and is not already taken. Keep the name short. Don’t buy anything yet, just shortlist the domain name. Say you want “dr-joe.com”

Third, call Godaddy (+1-(480) 463-8715). Get on-call with a domain salesperson and tell him you have already created an account on their website. Just buy these three items ( Domain name “dr-joe.com”, Ultimate Shared Linux Hosting and SSL certificate), decline all other add-ons that they may try to sell you.

Ask Godaddy’s Sales Person on the phone to give you the best discount other than the published prices. Opt for monthly billing instead of annual billing, because if your website-making plan goes down due to any reason, you will not lose much money ( less than $200 on Godaddy). You may alternatively make this purchase right after finalizing your website developer.

STEP 2: Create an impressive website by hiring a Website Developer / SEO:

The content of the website should make you stand out. What do you specialize in, why should the patients come to you and not others?

Search on Google for website developers in your area or visit fiverr.com or freelancer.com. Take a few quotations. Also, put your requirement on CraigsList and let people approach you. Ask for a few websites that they have developed recently. Even if you do not find a local developer, but from a nearby city, it is perfectly acceptable. You will need a few initial meetings, but then things can go smoothly over telephonic calls as well.

Here are the sample requirements for your developer:
( remove the portions in blue color,
I’ve put them here just for clarification)
———————————

A dental office is looking for a local website developer
( WordPress + SEO expert)

1. Need to build a WordPress based website, well optimized for search engines. (its a free, open-source software)
2. Recommend me a good Dental WordPress Theme (Usually costs around $50 to $100, one-time cost. Theme is the look and feel of your website. Don’t go for free themes. WordPress is like your car engine and Theme is the outer body)
3. I have already purchased a Domain name, SSL and a Linux Hosting plan with Godaddy.
4. How much will it cost to write 10 “SEO optimized” original and good quality dental articles on Invisalign, Dentures, Veneers, Root Canal, Implants, Teeth Whitening and more? (Article writing will cost you around $30-$60 per article.)
5. Suggested wordpress theme should support – Mobile friendly design, HTML 5, Responsive layout, Clean design, simple navigation and On-site SEO built-in ( Keywords, Title, Meta tags etc).
7. Copyright-free photos, Homepage, About us, Contact Us, Disclaimer, Testimonials section, attach the SSL certificate to the website and scheduled automatic backup of the entire site using the free Updraft Plugin.
8. Put my business listing on Google ( 15 minutes to fill the form. Approval from Google takes a few days. )
9. Please mention all the SEO efforts you will take ( link building from good websites, etc). Integrate Google Analytics to monitor traffic. Help me achieve a low Bounce Rate (means visitors stay on your website longer)
10. My total budget is around $1000 – $1500. ( But be prepared for spending up to $2000)

About WordPress: It is a content management and article publishing software and 100% free. I would not even recommend you anything else other than “WordPress” since it’s the best and has thousands of free/cheap plugins and themes. Anything that a small business/dental practice needs can be easily achieved at a low cost and implementations is very quick. WordPress is used by millions of websites, from small personal blogs to Fortune 500 companies. Once your website is up and running, the interface will be as simple as creating and modifying documents in Microsoft Word. You will not make your website, again and again, make it once the right way.

The basic website will be up and running in about 1 week to 3 weeks. Article writing will take about 30-60 days.

STEP 3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

To rank on the first page of Google for your city-specific search queries like “Dentists in San Jose” or “Get Root Canal in Austin“, will take almost 3 to 9 months of hard work with your website builder. There are no guarantees but just a general trend. Keep asking your SEO marketing guy why he is taking that step and how it will benefit you. Do consider posting some Youtube videos too.

It’s every bit worth the effort. Returns are generally beyond imagination. Depending on the population of your city, you may get a few hundred to a few thousand website visitors every month.

People who guarantee your website ranking on the first page of Google in 2 months are modern-day “Snake Oil” salesmen. Do all the right things and then leave it up to Google to rank your website gradually. It can even take 12 to 18 months for ranks to improve. A lot depends on online competition from other dental practices in your area. Do not fall for cheap website builders. You get what you pay for. Ranking well on search engines requires your involvement, good article writers, and review of what they have written. Do revisions if necessary.

Without your personal involvement and supervision, you will just have a website with no benefit. There may be hundreds of dentists in your area who must have outsourced work entirely on their website developers, but they must be generating zero leads online.

Your core website-building effort ends here. Every now and then add some latest content to your website, or update existing articles if needed.

STEP 4. Local Business Listing

Tell your Website Developer to help you create a local business listing on Google, BBB, Health Grades and Yelp.

Search and watch a short video on YouTube about Google My Business (GMB) listing.

Then request your good customers and friends to give you a 5-star review. When patients are searching for dentists in your local area, your listing will start appearing like the above.

STEP 5. Paid Advertising / Pay Per Click Advertising

In Google search results, people who pay Google ( through Adwords) stay on top. Then “Local business listings” appear ( mentioned above) and finally the search results. See below..

You may fix a budget of $100 or $200 per month, and the cost of each click you want to pay. For example, you might want to pay $5 per click and allocate a budget of $120 per month. It means when people search for a relevant dentistry term, Google will send 24 people to your website that month. Make sure to specify the geographic area as your city ( No point in showing your advertisement in San Francisco or Houston, if you practice only in New York.)

6. Social Media Marketing

Social media is an extremely powerful tool. Having a presence on social websites like Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter helps to reach real people. Posting content on tags relevant to your patients is a great advertisement tool.

7. Online press releases:
You can publish the latest developments in the dentistry industry or recent FDA findings or approvals. Publishing on popular press release websites can be costly ( say about $300 per post on prnewswire.com ). Consider doing this once or twice a year.

Offline initiatives

I have never seen a website rank poorly after one year of its making if a serious effort has been put in. We do not assist personally in making a dental website but hope the information above was helpful.

Too many accounts receivable of your patients? Looking for a debt collection agency with extensive experience in dental collections: Contact us

Finding Clients Online: Collection Agency Marketing and SEO

In this article, we have covered the most important aspects of digital marketing for your collection agency website that will help you to get new clients.

1. Make a GOOD , SEO Optimized website

Your website is your company’s face in the online world. If you do not have one, then make it your priority. For your website to render nicely on all screen sizes (mobile, tablet and desktops), it is important that your website is built using the latest web technologies (ex: HTML5, Responsive, SEO optimized etc). A website can bring in a lot of customers to your door if it secures a good ranking in Google Search. Top collection agencies spend a substantial amount of money to acquire clients online. If you have budgetary constraints, read our article (How to make your website for $300). Once your collection agency grows, you can add a self-service portal for collections ( Client Portal) to allow your clients to submit their accounts online.

SEO:
The technique to acquire traffic online requires consistent Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts from your side. Many companies rely on external vendors for their SEO efforts due to the lack of in-house SEO knowledge. A website that is ranked #1 on the google search page for terms like “Collection Agency” or “Debt Collection” can get hundreds and possibly thousands of “users” every month. Read “users” as POTENTIAL CLIENTS.

Terms like “Collection agency” are hotly contested topics in Google Search, therefore acquiring a good position for relevant keywords is quite difficult.

On the website, don’t forget to display your affiliations and certifications like ACA, BBB, HIPPA etc. Clients may not fully understand these badges but it does give a sense of comfort and trust.

2. Indulge in Social Network Marketing

Sharing your website’s information on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks will also bring traffic to your site. Search engines also consider Social Networking as a factor for improving search engine ranking. Just imagine a number of people who visit sites like Facebook and Linkedin every day. Social Network marketing is tricky. If your budget is good, you can even buy Advertisement-Space on these social network sites.

3. Run Ad Campaigns on Google Adwords

This is one of the most trusted ways of getting new customers. Unfortunately it’s quite expensive too. You must have noticed that whenever we search for a product or service on Google, the top few results are paid results. Those paid results are powered by Google Adwords. Contesting for the top few spots for words like “Collection agency” and “Debt Collection” generally costs between $5 to $15 per click (USA average). The rate per click goes up if you target places like California, where there are a lot more regional collection agencies and competition is higher. These rates are not fixed; it is a bidding process. If you decide to pay $2 per click to Google, your Advertisement will rarely appear on Google’s paid search results, assuming that your competitors are paying $10 per click.

Let us say that you agree to a Cost Per Click (CPC) of $7 in your Google Adwords account. If a potential client comes to your website by clicking on that paid-search link, Google will charge you $7 even if that client decides to go away from your website a few seconds later. CPC is just a charge which Google takes from you the moment it sends someone to your website. It is like a landing fee to your website. Having an impressive site is extremely important to increase your chances of converting a potential user to your client. Check out the “Google Keywords Tool” to find out more about the latest average pricing of the keywords you are targeting.

4. Advertise on Debt Collection Blogs/Websites/Magazines

There are many blogs and websites on the Accounts Receivable Management (ARM) Industry. Contact the website owners, and get a quotation from them for placing your Ad on their website, see if their quotation fits your budget. You can also opt for Print Ads in various magazines. Advertise on blogs that have a “medical” or a “dental” niche.

5. Tie up with Software Providers

Let’s say a software called XYZ is widely used in the dental industry. If you approach the makers of XYZ and offer their clients a special discounted rate, it can bring in a lot of business for you. If your company has a strong IT team, you can offer them to integrate your service with theirs in such a way that the clients of XYZ have an option to directly transfer delinquent accounts from their system to yours.

6. Have a Blog

Having a blog with useful information about debt collections is a great way to get people on your website who are looking for a debt collection service.

7. Attend Conferences

Attend medical, dental and small business conferences. Rent a stall and showcase your services. It takes about two years to build a relationship with businesses. It’s totally worth it. Have your senior sales rep attend these conferences.

8. Others:

There are several obvious ways like offering a special rate to a group or hiring a sales team, which we are not going to discuss in this article.

9. Purchase an established Collection Marketing Website

This may be the fastest way to get new clients online, however, it comes with a steep cost. Good collection agency marketing websites may cost from thousands of dollars to over a million depending on how much web traffic they get every day. Top blogs get over 25K visitors every month.

Do you have any more innovative ideas that we’ve missed? Please email us.

How to make your Collection Agency website for under $300

Summary:
( A static 5-10 page website + single email address )
1st year cost: Less than $300 ($12 Domain + $60 Hosting + $200 Development of website)
2nd year and beyond: $144 ($12 domain + $132 Hosting ($11 monthly hosting) + $0 development cost)

Regardless of the size of your collection agency (or your Collections law firm), having a website is really important, it is your self-introduction to the online world. It is rather embarrassing for anyone to say “Sorry, we do not have our company website yet“. Your website will help you in getting business too if it appears in Google Search results.

We are assuming you are a small/medium-sized collections agency and are not interested in hiring an expensive IT guy or willing to pay thousands of dollars to outsource it to an IT company.

Your website should be built using the latest technology. It should be “Search Engine Optimized (SEO)” and simple. We often come across very complex collection agency websites, which have flashy images and self-achievement revolving all around, but important pages like “Contact Us” or “About Us” are hard to find. A clean, simple and professional looking website suits everyone. Additionally, it should have a section for your debtors as well, instructing them which number to call if needed. You may place a link on your homepage, “If got a Letter/Call from us – Click Here” or “Click here to make a Payment“.

You can actually get your fairly good starter website up and running for under $300. We mean expenses for the entire 1st year, well under $300.

Here’s how

1) Get the ground work ready:
Visit the sites of other collection agencies. Do not even try to mimic or copy contents from their site, but just get ideas. Make up your mind on what you want to present on your own site.

2) Prepare content for your website:
Next, open a new MS Word document ( or Google Docs, or whatever you prefer) and create 5 of these pages listed below. Fill all the relevant information. You will be giving this document to an online web developer. Lets call this document as the Requirements.docx

Create these 5 sections (or more as needed), and fill the desired information:
– Homepage
– About us
– Contact Us ( list your phone, email, fax, address etc )
– Our Services
– Got a call from us (This is for your debtors)

Please make sure that information in this document is finalized before giving it to a website developer because making revisions to your website later can be costly.

3) Go to Godaddy.com (or your prefer host).

We are really not endorsing GoDaddy here, but this is the only domain registrar / hosting service we have personally ever worked with in the last 10 years and have never felt the need to migrate elsewhere. You can checkout other services like NamesCheap, BlueHost, inMotion, HostGator, etc. You can sometimes get additional discounts before the final checkout by using a Coupon code, Google the term “GoDaddy Coupons”.

(a) Buy a .com domain (not the .net or .org).
Keep the domain name short, preferably within 10 characters and which is easy to remember. Long domain names are hard to remember and even harder to type on mobile devices. You can go up to a maximum of 15 characters for a domain name, but under 10 characters is the best. Most good domains are already taken by others, so it may take a couple of hours to find the one you like. The domain costs around $12 per Year. ( lets assume that you buy – xyzcollects.com)

(b) Buy Hosting (Shared Linux hosting):
A deluxe hosting (https://www.godaddy.com/hosting/web-hosting) that costs about $11 a month is usually more than sufficient for a starter website. It usually costs half, if you buy for 1 full year ($5 per month). You can even go for cheaper hosting, but I feel lowest plans can sometimes make your website slow.

(c) Create your email address (ex: support@xyzcollect.com) , no need to buy any extra services, one email address comes for free with domain and hosting. You can always “forward” incoming emails to your gmail account if needed. More email addresses will cost you extra. For now lets assume that forwarding email address is sufficient, so $0 per month for an email account.

(d) Create 2 FTP accounts.
One for yourself and another for your “Website Developer“. This will be used to upload web pages to your website.

If you have any questions, call Godaddy’s helpline, preferably during off business hours else the wait time can be longer. We have seen very early mornings or late evenings are a good time to call them. Call as many times as needed, they are pretty nice about it. Never share your Godaddy username and password with anyone else.

Note: Like all hosts, Godaddy too will also try to sell you many additional products (.net. .org, website creator, SSL etc. ) decline all those, just stick to the basic products only. FTP accounts cost nothing ($0 per month).

4) Getting your website made for cheap:

Next go to this site Fiverr.com. Search for the term “create website“. You will easily find many online “Website Developers” for under $200 (one time cost). Tell them you need a simple 5 page professionally looking site (using these technology criteria’s “HTML 5, Responsive and SEO Optimized”).

Once you finalize the provider, give them your “Requirements.docx” and the FTP credentials of “Website Developer” account you had created above. Once your website is complete, go to your Godaddy account and delete this “Website Developer” FTP account. You do not want anyone to have access to your hosting account after the development is over.

Conclusion:
All this is not that hard. We feel your website should be up and running in about 1 week’s time. You would likely have to spend about 20 hours of your own time (or your employee’s time) to prepare content and other misc. work.

If this sounds a bit overwhelming, take help of a friend who is slightly familiar with websites. If you are still uncomfortable and would like someone else to do all this, you will likely spend around $2000 instead of $300.

Getting a good website is not an expense, it is an investment. Once you get enough traffic on your website or you have more funds ( like a few thousand dollars) hire a professional website developer, throw in a few video’s too and you will be all set. Well, all of this for a later date.

This was only about putting together a basic introduction website, up and running. This does not include the SEO efforts which help in boosting your Google Search rankings, those can be quite expensive.