In this article, we will be looking at why debt collection software makes sense for your private practice.
If you are a healthcare practitioner in private practice, at some point you may have considered either hiring a debtors clerk or outsourcing your unpaid accounts to a debt collection agency. You may also have thought of perhaps investing in a debt collection software.
This article will give you a better understanding of debt collection software and how it can help you manage your bad debt book, consistently and proactively without alienating your clients or outsourcing your collections.
Why would a healthcare professional use debt collection software.
Most healthcare practitioners in private practice are tired of overdue invoices, and really just not sure of what the next step is. As we have said before, sometimes being the only person doing the admin and the therapy and everything else, is really difficult .
It is also difficult to have a therapy session with somebody on Monday and have to phone them on Thursday about an overdue account. Because when they come in to see you for that next appointment, that that therapeutic relationship isn’t quite there. In a perfect world, every single invoice in your private practice would be paid. But in reality, this seldom ever happens.
Now, there are several reasons that this might not happen. But more often than not, and let’s be fair, let’s defend our clients here quickly. It’s normally not an intentional behavior. People don’t deliberately not pay a bill often and they fully intended to make the payment. And then something came up, the phone rang, that went into a meeting, whatever happened.
But once an account becomes overdue, or somebody goes into debt. And let’s be very honest they’re going to be listening to the people who are screaming the loudest to get the attention. And in our experience, healthcare practitioners in private practice, very seldomly scream the loudest to get the attention on their unpaid invoices. They tend to sweep them under the rug, or just let that account grow and grow. And that becomes a really difficult situation to be in as a business owner. Because you’re basically bleeding money, because you’re not screaming loud enough to get the account settled.
Debt collection software vs outsourcing your unpaid book.
Once a business realizes that they have a need to better manage their unpaid accounts. A few options are available to them to manage the accounts. The three most common options are manage the book yourself, invest in software or outsource the collections.
Outsourcing your bad debt book.
When you outsource your bad debt book to a collections agency or attorneys you have to take a few things into considerations.
- Upfront costs :: Some agencies and attorneys will charge you a percentage of your book upfront. There is no guarantee that they will recover the funds.
- Unpaids Book Size :: Many agencies and attorneys will prioritize the collections of larger books over smaller accounts. This means that your accounts might only be looked at once a month.
- Scripts :: Most agencies and attorneys use call centers to follow up on accounts. This means that all accounts have the same script which could alienate your clients. If a hard collections script is used on a client that is only 30 days behind you could lose that client.
- Trust Accounts :: Agencies and attorneys use trust accounts and release payments to their clients on a payment cycle. This means that if a client paid your account at the beginning of the month you will only know that its paid and receive the funds, less their percentage at the end of the month.
Debt Collection Software.
When you use a software you, retain control of your bad debt book and can manage the notices etc that you want to be sent to your clients. There may be monthly or annual costs for the software but this is not a percentage of each account.
Software also allows you to hire a debtors clerk or admin person to manage your accounts. It also gives you the option to fully manage the accounts yourself without having uncomfortable conversations with your clients.
Key Benefits of IsoDebt Debt Collection Software
Our cloud based unpaids management software, IsoDebt, offers you the following key features and benefits which rival many of the features that similar debt collection software and practice management software offer.
Cloud Based Software::
IsoDebt is a cloud hosted solution with no maintenance costs or hardware costs. So this means you don’t have to buy a program and have it installed on your PC. You can access your software from wherever you are. And you don’t actually have to have anybody come out to maintain or update the systems.
Cloud based also allows you to have easy access to your software from any device. This ensures that you can actually run your software from anywhere, if you’re sitting in the airport, and you very quickly need to load a payment or send a notice because it’s heading towards month end, you can do it there.
Real-Time Dashboards and Reports ::
Something that many practitioners have said is they don’t really have an idea of what is overdue. Or how much is overdue in 30 days, 60 days or 120 days. So IsoDebt has real time dashboards and reports. This kind of reporting ensures that you as the owner have your finger on the pulse and can see what is happening at any given time on your bad debt book.
Multiple Communication Channels ::
We all know that we live in a digital age, everybody’s really busy. Many people these days don’t actually answer their phone because they screen their calls. In fact many people would rather get a text or an email as it gives them time to respond rather than being blindsided by an unexpected phone call.
By using multiple communication channels you can send notices to a debtor via email, SMS or WhatsApp. This means that your notices are being sent on three of the most popular communication channels.
Automated Reminders ::
The larger your bad debt book is, the more difficult it becomes to manage the volume of reminder messages that need to be sent. With automated reminders you have the peace of mind of knowing that the reminders have all been sent.
The ability to automatically send a reminder to follow up on a payment agreement means that you dont need to be checking daily that notices are sent. if a client fails to honor an payment agreement the notice is sent without you having to remind someone to send it. Being able to send those automated messages really, does make a difference in your practice.
Customizable Messages ::
With IsoDebt allows you to fully customize the messages that are sent to clients. This means that you can customize the messages that you want to go out for a gentle reminder, or a payment reminder or a broken payment agreement. Or maybe you’re running a settlement offer, you can send a message to everybody, if you settle the accounts within the next 30 days, 20% off. Customizable messaging puts you in a position where you know what’s going out. And if you want to change or tweak something you can.
Conclusion.
We wanted to make a software that was easy to use, easy to read. And more importantly, that just gave you the visibility that you needed in order to be proactive on your unpaid accounts.
So you can set your system to say when you want certain notices to go out. And it’ll look at the age of the account. So if gentle notices should be sent out on 20 days, it’s looking at the number of days overdue. And only send the gentle reminder notice to any unpaid account on 20 days. When should the first notice, or second notice to be sent? You can set IsoDebt so it does that for automatically. If a patient is on a payment plan, IsoDebt will automatically send them a reminder to make that payment. So those are just some of the benefits of IsoDebt.
We are really happy and proud that we are able to bring a solution out that caters for smaller businesses. More than anything, because we looked there’s a lot of really great and phenomenal debt collection software out there. But its catered to the debt collection industry. So the call centers and that kind of thing. And unless you’re in a position where you’ve got five people chasing your accounts, you don’t need a system that large or more importantly, that expensive.
But what you do need is a way to manage your unpaid accounts . So if you’d like a little bit more information about Isodebt, or you’d like to book a session to do a demo with for the team click on the button below.