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A collection agency can assist a fitness gym in several critical areas, particularly in managing overdue payments and outstanding debts, which can significantly affect the gym’s financial health and operations. Here are some ways in which a collection agency may be beneficial:

1. Debt Recovery:

   Collection agencies specialize in recovering debts on behalf of businesses. They have established methods and the necessary legal knowledge to pursue overdue payments from gym members who have outstanding balances.

2. Legal Protection:

   Collection agencies are well-versed in the laws governing debt collection. By outsourcing debt recovery to a professional agency, fitness gyms can ensure that all collections activities comply with local, state, and federal regulations, thus mitigating legal risks.

3. Efficiency and Focus:

   Engaging a collection agency allows the gym’s management and staff to focus on core operations rather than being bogged down by the time-consuming task of chasing overdue payments. This division of labor can lead to a more efficient operation and a better customer experience for the gym’s members.

4. Cash Flow Improvement:

   Regular and effective debt collection contributes to improved cash flow, which is crucial for the gym’s operational sustainability and growth. By recovering more of the outstanding debts, the gym can maintain a healthier financial standing.

5. Documentation:

   Collection agencies maintain thorough documentation of the debt recovery process, which can be crucial in case of legal disputes. This professional record-keeping can be beneficial for the gym in demonstrating due diligence in pursuing debts.

6. Preserving Client Relationships:

   A collection agency can conduct the debt recovery process in a professional and respectful manner, which may help in retaining a positive relationship between the gym and its members, even when there are financial disputes.

7. Cost Effectiveness:

   Often, collection agencies work on a contingency basis, meaning they only get paid if they successfully recover debts. This can be a cost-effective solution for gyms, as it requires no upfront investment and aligns the agency’s incentives with the gym’s financial interests.

8. Advisory Services:

   Some collection agencies also provide advisory services to help businesses like gyms in establishing effective in-house credit management practices and policies to minimize future instances of overdue payments.

9. Reporting and Analysis:

   Collection agencies may provide detailed reporting and analysis on the debt recovery process, offering valuable insights into the financial behavior of the gym’s clientele and the efficacy of the gym’s existing credit and billing practices.

Kinum has helped thousands of businesses, government institutions, colleges, hospitals, dental and medical practitioners for over a decade. We are fully licensed in Florida. Being a national collection agency, we can pursue debts in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. If your debtor moved outside Florida, we can still pursue collections. We have dedicated teams to recover B2B (Commercial debt) and B2C (Consumer debt).

What distinguishes us from other collection agencies:

• We are extremely easy to use and work as per your needs (and not the other way around).
• Select between the low-cost Flat-Fee connect service (accounts never expire and debtor pays directly to you), or the traditional Contingency service.
• We understand that your business reputation is essential. As for how the debtors/patients are treated, Kinum has one of the highest Google Ratings of all collection agencies. Over 1300 Google reviews averaging 4.8 out of 5, and 90% of reviews are from people we’ve collected money.
• There is no minimum balance requirement, no minimum number of accounts, no set-up fees, and an open-ended, non-committal customer agreement.
• Free Credit Bureau reporting.
• High recovery rates. FDCPA, HIPAA, TCPA and GLBA compliant.
• Easy to use and apart from a central customer service team, you will be assigned a dedicated Sales Rep who can be reached directly.
• We take security very seriously. All accounts are managed through our secure online client portal with 2-factor authentication enabled.

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Florida Collection Laws:

Here’s an overview of some of the most important debt collection laws in Florida:

1. Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (FCCPA):
   • Codified in Sections 559.55-559.785 of the Florida Statutes, the FCCPA provides protections to consumers from certain abusive, deceptive, and misleading practices of debt collectors.
   • The FCCPA, in many ways, mirrors the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) but also provides protections against the original creditors, not just third-party debt collectors.
2. Statute of Limitations:
   • Florida law sets specific timeframes during which a creditor or collector can sue to recover a debt:
     • Oral contracts: 4 years
     • Written contracts: 5 years
     • Promissory notes: 5 years
     • Open-ended accounts (e.g., credit cards): 4 years
3. Exemptions from Garnishment:
   • Florida has specific laws that protect certain income and assets from garnishment. For example, wages of a head of household are generally exempt from garnishment unless the debtor has agreed otherwise in writing.
   • Florida also provides exemptions for certain types of income, such as social security, disability, workers’ compensation, and retirement pensions.
4. Homestead Exemption:
   • One of Florida’s most well-known protections is the homestead exemption, which generally protects an individual’s primary residence from forced sale by unsecured creditors, regardless of the home’s value.
5. Communication Restrictions:
   • Under the FCCPA, debt collectors are prohibited from communicating with consumers at their place of employment if the collectors have reason to know that the consumer’s employer prohibits such communication.
   • Collectors are also barred from communicating with consumers at unusual hours or places, with the presumption that the hours before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m. are unusual.
6. Prohibited Practices:
   • Similar to the FDCPA, the FCCPA outlines various actions deemed unlawful when collecting a debt. These include, but are not limited to, simulating a law enforcement officer or a representative of any governmental agency, using or threatening force or violence, communicating or threatening to communicate with a debtor’s employer, and disclosing information concerning the existence of a debt known to be disputed without disclosing that fact.

It’s vital for both creditors and consumers to be familiar with the FCCPA and other pertinent regulations to ensure compliance and protection of their rights.

Kinum’s utility for Dentrix Dental Practice Management software allows practices to directly transfer accounts for debt collections without manually re-enter accounts on Kinum’s Client Portal.

For about $15 per patient, Kinum will :

1. Send 5 collection letters to your patient (or debtor).

2. Kinum will check if the debtor has moved to a new house and send letters there.

3. If your patient has filed for bankruptcy or not.

4. Check if the patient is litigious or not to protect your practice from costly lawsuits.

5. Update status in case there is a Mail Return.

6. Ability to forward this account for intensive collections ( Contingency based Collector calls) if the debtor still refuses to pay.

7. Follow all debt collection laws. A HIPAA-compliant collection agency.

All this is for only $15 per account. You can free up our staff time and focus on your dental practice.

Our Dentrix integration is a utility, which means it can extract the required past-due accounts based on your preferences and the rules defined. It also checks if any payments have been posted for accounts in collections and automatically reports it to Kinum Collection Agency.

This web-based utility can only read data and cannot alter the data within the Dentrix system by itself. So your data is completely safe. You can decide if accounts should be transferred automatically or you should select which specific accounts should be transferred.

Additional features of the Dentrix-Kinum utility ( Collections Extract Manager) include

1. Transfer accounts to any step ( 1st party demands, 3rd party demands, and 3rd party Collector calls)

2. You decide what should be the minimum outstanding balance eligible for collections.

3. Only send accounts if a payment hasn’t been made in ___ number of days and has been ____ days past due.

4. If you pay in your Dentrix practice management software, our utility will pick that up and reflect on Kinum’s client portal.

Screenshots from the Kinum-Dentrix utility

Medical professionals and institutions may hesitate to contact a Virginia medical debt collection agency. But considering that there are 719,000 uninsured Virginians under the age of 65, it is likely that your medical bills are piling up.

A debt collection agency’s job is to help relieve doctors of unpaid balances so that they can continue to have working capital. This helps both patients and doctors by giving them the freedom to hire more staff and invest in more medical supplies. Without the option to sell medical debt, more patients would be turned away due to insufficient supplies.

Combined with the national effort to relieve patients of medical debt and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, there are now multiple ways to handle unpaid doctor visits. Consulting a Virginia medical collection agency is typically a viable solution for struggling practitioners.

Read on to learn about the current Virginia medical debt climate to help you determine if a collection agency is a right move for you.

Virginia Debt Statistics

Virginia is one of the wealthiest states in the nation. That’s good news for doctors and hospitals because the average income for residents of VA is about $60,000. That means that most residents with medical debt are in a position to afford monthly and regular payments. This can be done directly through the hospital or with the help of a Virginia medical debt collection agency.

However, this high expectation has forced many below this average threshold to turn down health insurance. According to the Virginia Health Care Foundation, “There are 428,000 uninsured Virginians ages 19 – 64 years old, with household income under 200% FPL (9%).”

This makes Virginia one of the top-rated states with the most uninsured residents. It is also difficult for Virginian patients to seek Medicaid help. Virginia is ranked last for the state’s residents to receive any form of financial, or medical help. This puts patients at risk because they can’t (or won’t) seek medical treatment instead of insurance.

Virginia Medical Debt Collection Laws

Virginia’s statute of limitations is three to six years. This is relevant to oral agreements, written contracts, open-ended accounts, and promissory notes. According to The Balance, the exact number of years for each type of agreement is as follows:

Oral: 3 years
Written: 5 years
Promissory Notes: 6 years
Open-Ended: 3 years

According to Virginia law, creditors such as hospitals and doctors may file a lawsuit against the debtor (i.e the patient) once the statute of limitations expires. However, most practitioners do not take this route with today’s Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Virginia Medical Debt Agency Process

Because of the difficulty in obtaining financial and medical help in Virginia, patients may see a doctor knowing they will never be able to pay their bills without insurance. That leaves doctors to pick up the slack by managing unpaid bills. The process is both daunting and time-consuming.

Instead of seeking legal retribution, most Virginian medical practitioners choose to sell their debt to medical debt collection agencies. Recent federal regulations (the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) ensure that patients with outstanding balances are protected against aggressive debt collectors. Collectors are restricted to calling during set hours of the day, and cannot harass, threaten, or intimidate former patients to pay their bills.

Instead, debt collectors now work alongside patients to develop a payment plan – an amicable option that may otherwise be unavailable to the patients in the state of Virginia.

Need a Medical Collection Agency in Virginia? Contact us!

References:
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodepopularnames/virginia-debt-collection-act/
https://www.vhcf.org/data/
https://www.vhcf.org/data/profile-of-the-uninsured/
http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/health-equity/virginia-health-equity-report/

Kinum Inc. is located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. All our collection operations are located in USA. We are fully insured and each year we recover millions of dollars for our valuable clients. Our fixed fees collection letters are a cost-effective way to recover money from past-due accounts.

Benefits of Kinum’s Collection Letters

Kinum’s collection letters service or the CONNECT service, is recommended for accounts that are less than 120 days past due.

1. Accounts purchased from Kinum NEVER EXPIRE

Other collection agencies try to sell larger number of accounts on the pretext that you ( the creditor) will get a better/cheaper deal if more accounts are purchased, but remember, their accounts typically expire in 1-2 years.

For example, if a Dentist buys 1000 accounts but uses only 850 accounts in 2 years, then the unused 150 accounts expire. The dentist just lost money to the same collection agency which was hired to recover his money. Something does not sound right.

At Kinum, we completely understand that it is impossible to know exactly how many accounts you will need, so we do not allow your accounts to expire. You can use them after 1 year, 2 years, 3 years and beyond. Yet, we want you to take full advantage of the discounted pricing without the fear of losing them.

Five collection letters with intensifying verbiage are sent out at regular intervals for each account assigned to us.

2. We just don’t send Collection Letters, we send COLLECTION DEMANDS

We take our collection letters very seriously. We break out each charge by date. Most agencies just list a lump sum owed. A BREAKUP OF CHARGES not only clarifies the amount of debt owed but it also communicates to the debtor that they are dealing with a collection agency which has a deep understanding about the case. Debtors are more likely to pay and less likely to dispute the charges or ask for the proof of the debt owed by him.

Our demands are sent in COLORED PRINT.Many agencies send demands in black and white print. All our collection letters are diplomatically authored and attorney approved.

Our collection demands are taken a lot more seriously and yield better recovery rates.

3. SPANISH or ENGLISH Letters, we have both

Is Spanish the primary language of at least some of your debtors? At Kinum, we understand the benefit of sending Spanish letters to people who do not understand English that well. A debtor is more likely to pay if he reads the collection demands in language which he understands better. Our Spanish letters are equally effective as our English language collection letters.

4. We do an extra Scrub – LITIGIOUS debtor check

Apart from complementary “Change of Address” and “Bankruptcy” checks on every account that is assigned to Kinum, we do one very important check “LITIGIOUS debtor check”.

So lets say, a patient who owes you $200 has sued two other medical practices earlier, he has a habit of suing medical practices. Even though the medical practices generally win these frivolous legal suits, yet the cost, time and stress involved in dealing with such cases is too high.

We inform you of such debtors, close the case and return this account back to you. This step protects you and us from trying to collect money from “high risk debtors“.

5. Ease of submitting your accounts receivable to Kinum

You can transfer your past-due accounts in many ways to us:

1. Enter an account one-by-one through our online client portal.
2. Alternatively. you can send us accounts in batch, for example send multiple accounts in an Excel file and we will load it in our collections system, saving you valuable time.
3. We have integrations and utilities for popular accounting providers like Quickbooks, AthenaHealth, eClinicalWorks, Eaglesoft and more. Your accounts can will be transmitted to us in a matter of seconds.

6. You get paid DIRECTLY

Collection letters are a low cost fixed fees service. There is no setup cost or any other hidden fees. Debtors are instructed to pay directly to you. We do not charge anything else.

7. Take the full advantage of our Online Client portal

Keep a track on how successful have our recovery efforts been for you. You can stop or pause the recovery on any account through our Client Portal. No need to call us, simply inform us through the convenience of our online Client Portal once a payment is received. Our online portal is 100% complementary for all our clients.

8. Transfer unpaid accounts to the Next Step – Collection Calls

Accounts which remain unpaid after the Collection Letters service, are placed on a web page of our portal called the “Transfer Queue“. Based on your instructions (or per the contract), these accounts can be transferred to the next step, the COLLECTION CALLS service, automatically or selectively. Collection calls are contingency based and at Kinum we call it the COLLECT service.

9. Why are Kinum’s Collection Letters more effective than Client’s own in-house collections?

Debtors which have not paid after 60 days are past due, are likely not going to pay you easily now. Collections being made in your OWN BUSINESS NAME can only be so much effective. Clearly your debtor has more serious cash flow issues. May be he has more than just your bill to be cleared and his financial problems are getting worse with every passing day. However, when a debt collection letter is sent under the name of a COLLECTION AGENCY, the whole equation changes. They are more likely to pay now verses when the demands were being send under your own business name.

10. Kinum offers COLLECTIONS GUARANTEE for Collection Letters service:

We are very confident of providing you better results through our “CONNECT/Collections Letter” service that we even offer you a guarantee. These lines are mentioned in our contract at the date of writing this article.

“We promise to minimally collect 2 times your purchase price if all accounts purchased under this Agreement are entered and processed through our Connect phase as instructed by Kinum and our representative, or we will refund the entire purchase price or the difference, if any, between what was collected in Connect and twice what was paid to use for the Connect service, whichever is less.“

How to get best results from Kinum’s Letters Service?

* Assign your accounts receivable to Kinum earlier for better results. For best results, we recommend submitting accounts for Collection Letters ( or the Connect – Step 2) once the account is between 60-120 days past due.

* A debtor may ask for backup documentation regarding the debt. Once a Kinum’s representative requests you to provide proof of debt owed, provide the invoice, receipts or contracts back to us quickly.

How much does our Collection Letters service cost?

Our CONNECT phase charges vary from $10 to $25 per account.

• a 25 account order will cost you $25.00 per account.
• a 50 account order will cost you $16.50 per account.
• a 100 account order will cost you $14.50 per account.
• a 250 account order will cost you $13.50 per account.
• a 500 account order will cost you $12.50 per account.
• a 1000 account order will cost you $10.75 per account.
• a 2500 account order will cost you $10.25 per account.
• a 5000 account order will cost you $9.25 per account.

There is a simple calculation on how many number of accounts one should consider buying, it should be number of accounts you will need in the next 2 years. Since the accounts purchased from Kinum never expire, therefore do not hesitate to buy more accounts to get the benefit of lower pricing.

We are licenced to collect in 49 states of USA and Puerto Rico. Only in Massachusetts, we perform collections through a local collections partner, which essentially gives us a nationwide coverage.

For each account assigned in the CONNECT phase, we send up to 5 collection letters, which have been crafted by an expert attorney. We perform free “Change of Address”, “Bankruptcy” and “Litigious Debtor” scrubs which help us improve our collections process.