Challenges of Getting New Clients for Established Medical Billing Service

by Anonymous

We have a small medical billing company. We pride ourselves on personalized service and actively, often for free, consulting with our clients to make their practices more profitable. The problem is growth.

We have a very hard time gaining new clients. We try word of mouth and even giving finder's fees but the big companies always seem to be where practices end up. We feels we are a niche type of company custom made for smaller practices who need personalized service and "hand-holding".

I've looked into marketing companies but they are expensive and we never get the feeling that they would be worthwhile. Any suggestions?

Response:
Sounds like your challenges are similar to what we faced also. We emphasize personal service and helping our clients become more profitable. Most really seem to appreciate it but some have a short memory. Or a "consultant" comes along and tells them how much more than can be making. And they just happen to offer billing services - or have an arrangement with one that can make them more $$.

One thing that seemed to help is to become knowledgeable in a specialty and emphasize the expertise needed in billing and maximizing reimbursement for that particular specialty. For us it was mental health and ophthalmology.

We find that billing for family practices is becoming increasingly challenging due to the larger billing services - which don't always offer the same level of service as a smaller one such as yours does.

Although we haven't tried to diversify, some billing service owners have branched out and offered services that compliment billing. This could be for things like credentialing, HIPAA compliance training (or audits), help with office forms and procedures, training related to practice management or EMR software, etc. We've noticed many smaller practices just don't have the time or resources to cover all the bases and many times need help with these.

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