Creditwatch Services Acquires Medical Collector Collectrite

Collection agency Creditwatch Services, Ltd. announced Monday that it has acquired the assets of Collectrite, Inc., a New Mexico-based health care accounts receivable management firm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Creditwatch, based in Ft. Worth, Texas, was seeking entrée into the health care ARM space, according to President Joseph F. Tempesta. Creditwatch is primarily a commercial collection agency who was interested in expanding into the consumer markets, he told insideARM.

"We identified [medical collections] as a rapidly growing industry," said Tempesta. "We were actively targeting small to medium-sized firms in that particular sector."

Collectrite has been in business for 30 years, focused on medical ARM services for most of that time. Tempesta said that the company has capacity for around 75 collection seats at its facilities in Albuquerque and Las Cruses, N.M.

Creditwatch currently has 70 full-time collectors at its Ft. Worth location with capacity for 120 agents. The office is strategically located at the south entrance of DFW airport and the company anticipates expanding into an additional 10,000 sq ft in 2009, according to Tempesta.

The plan now is to expand the billing and first-party medical collections practice and grow organically, said Tempesta. But he added that Creditwatch will always look at attractive collection firms in the medical space.

Tempesta, who has been with Creditwatch for about a year and a half, has a background in consumer and medical ARM. He said that the expansion into the health care market is natural given Creditwatch's expertise in complicated collection programs and the rapid growth of the market overall.