Investing in Customer Service and Collection Compliance Boost ROI on Client Liquidation Rates

Dawn Lehtinen
VP Healthcare at Array Services Group

We wanted to share with you a case study from J.C. Christensen & Associates, Inc. that focuses primarily on some areas of the collection industry where we’re seeing some return on our investment, namely: customer service and compliance – and how they helped increase our client’s liquidation rates.

We worked with a top 100 Midwestern hospital that was growing increasingly dissatisfied with its current collection partner. Specifically, dissatisfied with the customer service, degree of compliance, and decreasing liquidations. It was our feeling that providing the hospital with our expertise in customer service and compliance, we would be able to naturally increase its liquidations.

Hospitals are, in many ways, the very life of a community. Their relationship with their neighbors and others in their service area is very important, and most in need of protection. Having a damaged reputation because a collection agency is not representing a hospital in a professional and compliant fashion is not where any hospital wants to be.

We saw an opportunity to fix what was wrong with the hospital’s previous agency relationship. JCC implemented a dedicated team of trained recovery professionals focused on patient-sensitive and effective debt recovery to increase liquidations. But more importantly, it was our commitment to compassion, dignity, and respect with every call that we believe set us apart.

Our philosophy is: you increase liquidations by increasing your collections – and you do that most effectively by treating each consumer  with respect; you are, in effect, an ambassador of the hospital, and you will play a large role in that consumer’s continuing thoughts and relationship with the hospital. You also increase liquidations by remaining completely compliant with laws and regulations. Healthcare, especially, is an arena where strong-armed tactics have absolutely no place.

We would be very interested in hearing some of your thoughts: How vastly different is healthcare collections compared with, say, credit card or utility collections? Do you have a team dedicated solely to healthcare? What are some compliance issues you repeatedly run into? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

About Dawn Lehtinen

Dawn is a hands-on executive veteran of the Accounts Receivable and Customer Care Outsourcing industries with over 30 years’ experience known for creating and maintaining lasting revenue streams in healthcare, telecommunications, commercial, government/student loan and financial services verticals. She is well respected for her expertise in large project sales and client relationship development within healthcare and has served as Vice President, Healthcare at Array Services Group since 2006.

About Array

Array Services Group and its three innovative business units – CareCall, ProSource and J.C. Christensen & Associates – offer professional services in call management disciplines, accounts receivable and revenue cycle management, empowering clients for immediate and future success.