Posts Tagged Debt collection quotes
Credit Cards Help Medical Providers Cut Back On Collection
Posted by Mallory Megan in Currency & Finance on April 15th, 2010
In recent news it was revealed that Michigan doctors offices are requiring that, patients present and utilize their credit cards before getting any medical care. A fairly new internet based medical payment program permits medical providers to secure a credit card before medical help is provided.
Touting that it is fact that it is a way of making sure medical providers collect their pay while keeping administrative costs down, the business has been around since 2008. It works like this: upon arriving at their doctors office, patients are informed by their medical care provider what the maximum amount a particular procedure will most likely cost. The patient slides their credit card, gets the procedure done, and gets sent out of the office with a receipt and a detailed slip of services that were provided.
After that has happened the doctor will bill the patient’s insurance company. It will tell the doctor how much of the work is covered; the balance left over is charged on the card. If a deductible hasn’t been met, then the whole price of the procedure is charged.
With the increasing health care costs, more pressure has is being put on patients to pay their bills in the form of higher deductibles, out of pocket expenses and unpaid bills. With this stress that is increasing, unpaid and delinquent bills have become big issues for medical doctors.
Patient’s health care payments top the charts now to cover three hundred billion dollars a year, and that number is supposed to grow up to twice that number by 2015. From this number, fifty to sixty billion dollars of current health care debts go without being paid. The program has been shown to reduce late accounts by up to eighty percent.
But some financial experts remain skeptical. The issue of patients who don’t pay off their balance each month hasn’t yet been resolved, and this is not factoring in the problem of a patient not having a credit card.
Mallory Megan is employed by a debt collection agency. She also writes stories on business, finance, consumer spending and collection agencies.
Collection Industry Gets Ready For Young Adults
Posted by Mallory Megan in Currency & Finance on April 12th, 2010
The most current analysis of the American economy shows that incomes are decreasing for those just begining. The Collections Industry has reason to believe that this paradigm shift will be permanent.
Young adults are the most uninsured and underinsured demographic of any group in the United States. 30% of young adults are currently not insured. Even though the majority of uninsured young adults have jobs, a number of uninsured young adults work in low wage jobs and for employers who offer limited or no health care coverage.
With this much young adults already struggling to pay everyday expenses, debt collectors should step back and take a look at this situation. Uninsured young adults are two times as likely as those with private insurance to have no education beyond high school. That limits their future earnings potential.
Because of the financial problems in 2008, stricter credit standards will most likely make it harder for a number of young adults to pay for post graduate education or get loans for “good debts,” such as a home.
This as well as the new problem of cell phones, makes it harder than ever for bill collectors to get into contact with consumers. John Monderine, owner of Rapid Recovery Solutions alleges that over 40 percent of his consumers don’t have landlines at this moment.
Researchers in the field expect more methodical profiling systems will be created to help debt collection companies in collecting those accounts where there is a cell phone active and information from bureaus to determine if the debtor has a new address or phone number.
Many collection firms are getting ready for younger adults, attempting to use the ways that they like to communicate and do business. One collection company recently added an online system that permits debtors to make payments on the internet, rather than deal with a collector in person.
Mallory McGuinness is employed by a debt collection company. She also composes stories on business, finance, consumer spending and collection agencies.
Credit Card Business Model Tested In Current Downturn
Posted by Mallory Megan in Currency & Finance on March 19th, 2010
Discover Financial Services, facing the necessity for further funding while income is decreasing and credit card charge offs are increasing, received only a unenthusiastic response from the equity market as a public offering last week of its average shares had to be priced at a 12 percent reduction to the market.
Right now there is a extraordinary accumulation of risk aversion when it comes to credit cards, said Dan North, chief economist at Euler Hermes ACI, a trade credit insurance firm.
The credit panic started last fall. As a result, people started using their credit cards less, meaning less interchange income from transactions. The credit card firms have also become defensive, cutting credit lines, raising fees and changing interest rates from fixed to variable, both in response to the need for more revenue now and to prepare for the restrictions from the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, which goes into effect next year.
According to North, Discover cardholders have fragile credit ratings, on a whole, than holders of MasterCards, Visas and American Express cards, though those companies are struggling the same financial challenges.
All of those elements have also made it hard for a new competitor in the market, Revolution Money, a payment platform complete with credit card and money transfer service planed to compete with major card companies Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. Revolution LLC, headed by AOL founder Steve Case, had longed to compete mainly by offering better security through a chip-based card and lower interchange fees to merchants.
A group of niche players that are gaining more traction now, according to a Scripps Howard News Service report, is peer-to-peer lending (P2P), which completely bypasses traditional financial institutions. P2P lending services bundle pledges from individual investors and offer small loans to other individuals at attractive rates, a model that could evolve into direct competition for credit cards.
Mallory Megan works for a debt collection agency. She also composes stories on business, finance, and collections agencies.
Flagger County Officials Put Off Ambulance Collections Decision
Posted by Mallory Megan in Currency & Finance on March 19th, 2010
Commissioners on Monday deferred a decision to hire a collection agency because of delinquent ambulance bills obtained in unincorporated regions of Flagler County. Instead, county staff will do more research and the item will be brought back to commissioners for discussion sometime in July.
Commissioner Alan Peterson pronounced during the meeting that he was not ready to sign at the dotted line in the piggyback contract alongside officials in Orange County because he first wanted to have knowledge of how the collection agency does its business.
He wanted to know how frequently the agency calls residents about their delinquent accounts and what times of the day those calls were made. He also wished to know how many written notices would be sent to residents in arrears for their emergency medical care during an ambulance ride.
“My overriding concern on this whole issue is that unlike most bills people incur, this is an involuntary expense,” Peterson said. “People don’t normally choose to take an ambulance for medical care.”
Commissioner Barbara Revels said she also wanted to ensure the county wasn’t getting into business with a “heavy-handed” collection agency that could result in consumer backlash, like some that’s now being seen around the country.
Under the county’s current billing routines, insurance companies are billed for a patient who receives medical care and transport. If the patient is not insured or the insurance does not cover the full balance due, a third-party billing company steps in and attempts to collect the debt through written notices with the help of information verification from Tax Collector Suzanne Johnston’s office. The account is kept open and debt collection attempts continue for up to a year, at which time the debt is moved to a “bad debt” list and charged off by commissioners.
The debts are not placed on residents’ credit reports and pugnacious telephone tactics are not used for collection.
Peterson also said if the board decides to move forward in hiring a collection agency, he’d like to see county officials add a new level of regular review to the accounts on its “bad debt” list before they’re turned over for collection.
“There should be a review of each and every account to see if it makes sense to turn it over to the collection agency,” Peterson said.
He requested county staff obtain the proposed collection agency’s procedures and has asked them to present an outline of the policy they will use for reviewing accounts before they’re turned over to the agency sometime before the end of July.
“We haven’t had a collection agency up to this point, so I don’t think it would hurt to delay the decision two weeks,” said County Administrator Craig Coffey.
Mallory works for a debt collection agency. Also, she composes stories on business, finance, and collections. .
Your Small Business Is Not Alone In This Economy
Posted by Mallory Megan in Currency & Finance on March 16th, 2010
You would have to be living in a cave not to be aware that we’re in the worst financial crisis in our lifetimes in the United States. If you find yourself worried about your business and what can happen next, you’re certainly not alone.
As I write this, the next few days bring great uncertainty about what the government is going to do to try and help bail out the failed banking system in the US. While it’s not clear what form the assistance will take, it appears almost certain that the US government will have to do something to fix the mess created in the financial system by rampant greed. What is going to happen? Who knows! What is obvious is that the vast majority of Americans are very unhappy with the situation and quite angry about spending billions of dollars to bail out an industry known for greed.
The fact of the matter is, a bailout is not the end of the troubles for those of us who run small businesses. The United States economy is in deep, deep trouble and this will not be fixed very quickly. All the major news outlets have commentaries about what’s happening and what to expect. It seems the consensus is that it’s unlikely we’re going to experience a level of unemployment seen during the Great Depression. That’s the good news. The bad news is that things are ugly and their likely get much worse before they get better. And if that wasn’t enough, things are probably not to get better in the near future.
Small-business owners are unlikely to be able to get the credit that they need in order to expand their business in the near future. So what can you do? No one can tell you what you need to do in your particular business, but I’ve always been a strong supporter of the low-cost direct marketing style in my businesses. I suggest you start rethinking all the creative ways you can seek out more revenue at a minimum cost. This means not only getting new customers at minimum cost, but equally important, you need to try to sell more services to the customers you already have.
The situation is a lot more complicated than simply not being able to obtain additional credit, it is also going to be difficult for most business owners to even make it through the next several years. There has already been a huge drop in consumer spending in the US. Getting new customers as well as maintaining the ones you already have is going to get very difficult. That is why this is the time to get yourself back to the basic and most important task you have, “Get your business well marketed.” There is nothing more important for your business in tough times such as these than your marketing efforts.
Mallory McGuinness works for a collections agency that works with a debt collection lawyer. She also writes stories on business and finance, consumer spending and collections agencies.
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