An Interview With Karen Cooper of Transworld: Collection Solutions for Today’s Collection Problems

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I have known of Transworld Systems for almost as long as I’ve been in healthcare – a long time. But it wasn’t until I  got to know Karen Cooper from Transworld Systems that it came home to me what a difference a company representative can make in the ultimate success of the service.

Karen has been with Transworld for 10 years (the company has been in business for 41 years), moving to a sales job with the company after getting her MBA and getting her kids started in elementary school. She looked for the right job for a year and a half and even though she had never been in sales before, she knew she could leverage her professional experience and education to great advantage in full-service collections.

Although not exclusively working with healthcare clients, Karen loves the medical market and enjoys the “lingo” that is so specific to medical practices and hospitals. She has seen many changes in healthcare over the past 10 years, particularly physicians’ interest in and acceptance of a business approach to collections. With patients having responsibility for more of the healthcare bill, physicians and managers are turning to specialists to do the staff-intensive chore of collections.

Karen’s approach is a consultative one. She starts by exploring how a group is currently managing collections and what their pain points are, and by reviewing the group’s accounts receivables. Based on the individual needs of the group, a collaborative decision could include:

  • patient account balance reminders (calls/ mail) that appear to come from the practice/hospital
  • customized patient collections where the client determines the assertiveness and intervals of contact
  • attorney intervention for high-dollar accounts
  • contacting payers to escalate on claims payment

One surgery practice administrator reports “We’re using Greenflag on our private pay accounts and getting 50% recovery at 2% collection cost! GreenFlag has collected more than $600,000 for our office in delinquent insurance claims with their Insurance Resolution program. The collection cost was a mere 1.1%.”

If your group could use help with collections, contact Karen Cooper and take advantage of her offer to Manage My Practice readers – a free no-obligation Accounts Receivable analysis and consultation. Her personal Transworld page is here, which has her email and phone numbers.

I asked Karen what she wanted readers to know about her and Transworld and this is what she told me. “I want them to know that we have their best interest at heart and want to do right by them.” I like that.


 

 

 

Karen Cooper joined Transworld Systems Inc. in 2001 and is currently a District Sales Manager in New Jersey, but maintains  client base which covers most of the US. Transworld Systems (TSI) is a 41-year old company with approximately 60,000 business clients ranging from sole proprietorships to Fortune 500 Enterprises. About one-third are in the healthcare industry, making healthcare their largest market. TSI is sponsored by the AMA, is an AdminiServe partner of the MGMA, and is also Peer Reviewed by the HFMA. Karen Cooper, is dedicated to helping practices increase their cash flow and reduce their operating expenses by focusing on better and more systematic management of accounts receivable. She has a background in Finance (MBA from NYU Stern School of Business) and Consumer Credit (6 years at Citibank HQ Credit Cards Division) and holds a BA in Cognitive Science from Vassar College. She resides in NJ with her husband and two teenagers.

Posted in: Collections, Billing & Coding, Finance

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6 Comments

  1. Nishan Karassik October 4, 2011

    I’m sure Karen is great, but my interaction with Transworld so far have been sub-par.

    We do hospital and physician billing and have concentrated on optimizing technology to do a better job. Incidentally this also keeps our costs down.

    One of our clients contracted with Transworld. Our clients choose the collection company. This helps to alleviate any conflicts of interest.

    When I contacted Transworld to have them give me a Secure FTP site for collection data file drops, they went around and around for months. They finally said they didn’t have that technology. Of the eight different collection companies our clients work with, seven have this technology. Some of these companies are local and smaller.

    The reason SFTP is important for us is that we have automated our server to pull the correct patient accounts, bundle them into a file for automated upload via a number of possible secure technologies. If we don’t have automated uploads, we have to have a person, who on collections transfer day, goes to the collection company website, then manually loads each file for each clinic who uses that collection company. One collection company with one file seemingly is fine, but eight collection companies with a hundred files a month adds up and increases labor costs, so each and every element we can have a computer do decreases our costs or allows us to do a better job.

    With automation these loads happen at night, but for Transworld we have to manually load these files which increases our labor costs.

    SFTP is an easy technology to implement. All companies which who need to securely accept files should have it.

    • Mary Pat Whaley October 4, 2011

      Hi Nishan,

      Thanks for your comment. Here is Karen’s response:

      Transworld does offer secure file transfer via FTP for larger clients as well as for billing companies who send us data for several practices at once. For example, athenahealth sends us files daily via FTP on behalf of hundreds of their clients. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer FTP setups for every client, so instead, we provide a secure, encrypted website with an upload utility that accepts files in many different formats.

      Best wishes,

      Mary Pat

  2. Debbie Puccio October 5, 2011

    I have been a customer of both Transworld and Karen Cooper since Feb 2010. I must say that after many,many years as an administrator in this business, I have never enjoyed the results that Transworld has provided me. My most recent Transworld report for this 18 month time period proved my ROI of 1,671%! I have actually recommended them and brought them into 2 additional practices.

    • Mary Pat Whaley October 5, 2011

      Hi Debbie,

      Recommending a vendor to practices in your community is a sign of a sincere referral.

      Thanks for commenting.

      Best wishes,

      Mary Pat

  3. Joan Ledzian, FACMPE October 5, 2011

    Not only does Karen Cooper conduct business in a professional, and more importantly, precise manner; Transworld and Greenflag are excellent vehicles for our AR management.

    As a Medical Practice Administrator, report generation is very important to give me the answers to “How Are We Doing?” Transworld’s website offers that and more. It is a superb company with highly qualified employees such as Karen.

    • Mary Pat Whaley October 5, 2011

      Hi Joan,

      Thanks for your comment.

      Best wishes,

      Mary Pat