2006RUS

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 said during the meeting that he wasn’t ready to sign at the dotted line in the piggyback contract alongside officials in Orange County because he first wanted to know how the collection agency does its business.

He wanted to know how repeatedly 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 arrives at conclusion 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.

Collect your judgement recovery and improve your accounts receivable collections. Mallory Nocks works for a new york collection agency.

In Dallas, the North Texas Tollway Authority, an entity responsible for collecting tolls, has been scrutinized for months over its toll collecting policy. This policy charges drivers who do not pay up at the toll booth fines of hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. Because the NTTA has been under fire in the public eye, it announced today two steps it says that will target improving customer satisfaction.

The first measure that the NTTA took was to allow all drivers to utilize the electronic toll collection lanes, including those who do not have one. They can do this without being punished with a twenty five dollar fine.

Before this measure, drivers without toll tags that utilized the electronic lanes on the Dallas North Tollway were seen at as violators and would be fined twenty five dollars for each time they passed through an electronic toll booth, rather than a cash booth after the fact.

However, after February eighth, the drivers lacking a toll tag who use the electronic lanes will be given the opportunity to pay for the tolls before being slammed with the additional twenty five dollar fine. But these toll charges will continue to be calculated at the cash rate, which is twice as high as the rates paid by toll tag consumers.

However, the change will not affect the NTTA’s collections policy in any other way and it will not prevent customers without toll tags who don’t pay toll bills mailed to their homes from being charged twenty five dollars for every unpaid toll. This is a policy that can turn a week’s worth of tolls into a thousand dollar bill.

The NTTA’s second measure was to appoint an internal auditor as a mediator of some sort, which will be on hand to help frustrated customers who have first complained their way through NTTA customer service hierarchy without a result that they deemed to be satisfactory. The auditor will then review the account and determine if customer service and billing reps have followed their own rules.

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