Art of Success 2009 Session Highlights

Keynote Speaker: Dennis Deaton

Dennis Deaton delivered the Art of Success 2009 keynote speech "The Ownership Spirit: The One Grand Key that Changes Everything Else," titled after his most recent book. Deaton, an internationally-known business psychology writer and author of four books, is a motivational speaker who has addressed conferences held by a wide array of organizations such as Boeing, Dupont, and Charles Schwab. More...

Skip Tracing: Best Practices

Skip Tracing is an often-misunderstood component of the collections business, according to Columbia Ultimate's Ray Cox, a veteran collector turned software account executive who led the skip-tracing best practices roundtable discussion at Art of Success. It's a sector of the business that is sometimes viewed as an art, with detective like experts cracking the toughest cases. More...

Patient Eligibility: Key Considerations

In today's economy there are a growing number of self-pay patients. Self-pay has more than one definition, according to Buffy Loveday of Emdeon. It can mean the patient has no insurance and is responsible for the charge or the patient has insurance and is responsible for an amount after insurance has paid (i.e. copay). More...

Optimizing Payment Strategies with The Collector System

In today's difficult economy, many consumers are bottoming out in terms of their ability to pay in full. Collections agencies are responding by offering consumers a wider range of payment options than payment-in-full to meet their clients recovery goals. More...

Legal Landscape for the Collection Industry

Staying abreast of the ever-changing body of law governing the collections industry has become one of the prerequisites for success. As every agency owner knows, getting a handle on the case law can be daunting. More...

Into the Zone: Creating Top Performers

In this roundtable discussion, Doug Gregg from The Intelitech Group led a discussion on topics ranging from recruitment and hiring to retention and training. Agencies discussed the costs to bring a new collector on board and agreed that referrals were an inexpensive and highly effective way to recruit new employees. More...

Healthcare Collection Trends: Where is the Industry Headed?

A panel of Healthcare Collections industry experts discussed the economic landscape and challenges facing their business. What emerged in the discussion was a list of issues of concern to both agencies and their clients. Panel members said some traditional business models and procedures were under threat, but there was room for optimism. More...

What's New, What's Next with The Collector System

This session was an overview of recent enhancements for The Collector System, as well as a look at what's in the pipeline for future versions of the system. The aim of the session, according to The Collector System Product Manager and session leader Mike Wright, was to underline Columbia Ultimate's commitment to its user community in responding to user feedback with enhancements that help collectors reach more debtors and recover more dollars. More...