Interview: Leigh Marcus, VP of Professional Claims Bureau, Inc

In the past two years, while continually growing our self-pay collections division, we have also focused on the growth of our early-out self-pay and insurance follow-up services.  Both current and prospective clients have met this diversification through additional service offerings with a great response.

Q. How much of your operation is devoted to healthcare collections?

A. Currently 99% of our business is in the healthcare industry. What continues to vary with the changing industry is the percentage of our revenues from varying services within the healthcare industry.

Q. What are the advantages/disadvantages of solely collecting healthcare?

A. I do not believe that there is either an advantage or disadvantage in focusing solely on the healthcare industry.  I believe that, given the fact that we are a medium-sized, family-owned business, our focused approach to a single industry allows us to produce the best results for our clients without spreading ourselves too thin.  Both my father and I are hands-on executives capable and willing to take part in any function of the business in order to ensure success. 

My desire to stay focused on the healthcare industry comes from my belief that we are assisting patients resolve what is, in most cases, a stressful and unwelcome situation.  My belief is that, through education and courtesy to all parties involved, the situation is usually able to be resolved in an amicable manner.  Healthcare collections is a totally different animal than collections in other industries, most often because the individual did not walk out with a tangible product and in most cases did not willingly pursue the services that they had.

Q. Does a smaller agency’s size hinder its ability to collect, or do businesses prefer a smaller, family-owned operation?

A. In many industries I assume an agency’s size can help or hinder its ability to collect.  More importantly, however, in the healthcare industry, in addition to securing payment on an account, it is essential that patients be treated ethically and with respect.  Hospitals and physicians need to be community minded and avoid any unnecessary bad press.  In dealing with an agency such as Professional Claims Bureau you are not doing business with a large conglomerate, but rather a medium sized company in which the principals are involved 100 percent in the day-to-day operations.  It is for this reason that I believe businesses (hospitals and doctors) would rather deal with an agency such as ours, conditioned of course that we could continue to produce results.

Q. What effect, if any, do you think single-payer healthcare might have on medical collections?

A. First off, I do not believe we will see a single-payer healthcare system in the United States any time soon.  That said, I do believe that if there were a single-payer healthcare system it would dramatically change the industry as we know it today.