Accounts receivable management and collections
Three ways to get paid, matched to how old the account is.
Most businesses have exactly one setting for unpaid accounts: wait, then hand everything to a percentage-based agency once it is far too late. That is why recovery rates are so poor. An account at forty days and an account at four hundred days are different problems and they need different tools.
I place these programs through Transworld Systems, where I have been an agent since 2008. The service descriptions below are TSI’s, and the day ranges and letter counts come straight from their program documentation. What I add is picking the right one for your situation, which is usually the difference between this working and not.
The three programs
The first two are fixed fee, which is the part most people do not expect. You pay per account, not a percentage, so recovering a large balance does not cost you more than recovering a small one.
Accelerator
Payment reminders sent in your business or practice name, not a collection agency’s. Five automated reminders by letter or call over a thirty-five day period. To your customer it reads as your office following up, because effectively it is.
- Contacts go out under your name, so the relationship stays intact
- Payments and replies come back directly to you
- Low fixed fee per account, which TSI positions as costing less than chasing it in-house
- You keep everything recovered
Profit Recovery
This is where a third party enters the picture, and it is the workhorse of the three. Five written demands over roughly two and a half months, escalating in tone from a courtesy notice to a final demand. A lot of accounts resolve on the first letter simply because someone other than you is asking.
- Still a low fixed fee per account, with no percentage taken
- You keep 100 percent of what comes in
- Payments go directly to you and you keep control of the accounts
- Diplomatic by design, which matters when the debtor is a patient you want back
Contingency Debt Collection
For accounts that have ignored written demands, or where the customer has moved and stopped answering. This is full-service collections: phone work by professional collectors, skip tracing, asset discovery, credit bureau reporting, and legal action where it is warranted.
- Contingency fee, so if nothing is collected you are not charged
- Priced as a percentage of what is recovered, unlike the first two programs
- Nothing moves to this stage without your say-so
It works with the software you already run
The most common objection I hear is that adopting anything new means another system to learn and another export to build. That is not what happens here. The program interfaces with most medical and dental practice management and billing software, so accounts are submitted from where your team already works rather than rekeyed somewhere else.
You keep your billing system, your workflow, and your staff. If you want to know whether your specific software is covered, tell me what you are running and I will confirm before you commit to anything.
AAOMS Advantage partner Cash Flow Strategies is an AAOMS Advantage partner, which is the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons' program for vetted service providers. AAOMS members receive special pricing on the receivables programs. Pricing discounts depend on the volume of accounts you place. Mention your membership when you call and I will apply it.
For medical and dental practices
Healthcare is where most of my clients are, and there is a fourth service that only applies here. TSI offers insurance claims and denials and appeals management, aimed at claims that are sitting unpaid or have been denied rather than patient balances that are sitting unpaid. If your aging problem is really a payer problem, that is a different conversation and worth having.
On the compliance side, TSI states that it is a certified SSAE 16 SOC 1 Type 2 service provider and that it maintains controls for protecting patient information. Those are TSI’s own representations, and if compliance review is part of your vendor process you should ask for their current documentation directly rather than take my word for it.
How to tell whether this is worth your time
The honest test is volume. If you are carrying a handful of accounts past sixty days, this is probably not worth setting up. If you are carrying dozens, and your staff is spending real hours on follow-up calls that go nowhere, the math changes quickly and the fixed-fee structure is what makes it work.
Call me and describe what your aging report looks like. I will tell you which of the three fits, or whether none of them do. Several of the reviews on this site say some version of the same thing: I will tell you when I cannot help you.
More detail: why the fee is per account rather than a percentage, how this works for dental practices, and what to do when the payer is the problem. Full program documentation from Transworld Systems is at gotsi.com/davidwiener.
Start with a conversation, not a contract
Tell me what you are dealing with and I will tell you plainly whether I can help. If the answer is no, you will hear that too. There is nothing to sign and nothing to prepare beforehand.