Our hope is that with the support of ACA International and other major trade associations, such as banks and lenders, electric utilities, the airline industry and university administrators, this legislation will become law.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was enacted in 1991. This legislation imposes restrictions on the use of automated telephone dialing equipment, “auto-dialers” and artificial or prerecorded voice calls to make non-emergency calls to wireless phone numbers, without the prior express consent of the called party.

The primary focus of the TCPA was to protect consumers from unwanted telemarketing calls. There is no question that consumers should be protected from unwanted telemarketing calls, but this prohibition is totally unjustified as it applies to non-solicitation calls. Many collection agencies, including TSC, utilize “auto-dialers” to assist them in their effort to collect unpaid accounts for their clients.

Twenty years later, wireless phones are everywhere! In fact a recent study by the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 40% of US Households rely primarily on their wireless phones and this number is growing substantially every year.¹ In addition, consumers pay significantly less on a per minute basis for mobile services today than they did in 1991.

Furthermore, assistive technologies benefit both businesses and consumers alike when used to convey timely information and for other non-solicitation purposes. Many businesses call their customers to inform them about fraud alerts, service changes, doctor’s appointments and transactional-related information. These calls, among other things, make consumers aware of threats such as unauthorized use of their credit cards, notification of flight changes, appointments and cancellations just to name a few.

By utilizing assistive technologies, businesses are able to make these calls quickly and efficiently, and convey accurate information. As a result, the current blanket prohibition by the TCPA on the use of such technologies to call wireless numbers imposes significant and unwarranted costs and inconveniences on businesses, consumers, and the economy as a whole.

Mail

If you receive any sort of junk or solicitation mail at work there are methods you use to opt out of this.  Log-on to Optoutprescreen.com and opt out of mailing lists so that you will stop receiving insurance and credit offers.  At DMAchoice.org you can opt out of direct marketing mail.  For more information on how to stop receiving unsolicited mail you can visit The Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Alert.

Filing

Printing

Inter-office Paperwork

Back-up

Many of us are familiar with the term “Statute of Limitations”, but we may not be aware of another term called “time-barred” debt. This refers to a debt that has passed the statute of limitations period for the specific state in which the debt was incurred. Statutes of limitations vary from state to state.

In California, the Statute of limitations for verbal contracts is two years and for written contracts it is four years. What this means is if your patient or customer has signed a financial agreement to pay you for services rendered, you will have four years to collect this debt through legal measures. Basically, this means you could sue your customer. After this time period has lapsed, the debt becomes what is referred to as a time-barred debt.
There is some difference in opinion as to whether a time-barred debt can still be collected by a Collection Agency. There are differences on this issue from state-to-state. Some states have even enacted laws regulating the collection of these debts. However, California places no restriction on collecting time-barred debts. This means that a debt could be eight years old and a collection agency could still try to collect it. Most collection agencies, including TSC, will not accept debts older than the statute of limitations.

TSC has chosen not to accept accounts older than the statute of limitations for a number of reasons. One of the most significant is that our collection process alerts the debtor that if they fail to pay, their account may be reported to the credit bureaus and also our client may wish to pursue legal means to recover the debt. If we were to tell the debtor that our client may choose to pursue legal means to recover the debt and the account was a time-barred debt, this would be a violation of both the FDCPA and the State Rosenthal Collection Practices Act.
In addition, debts this old are much less collectible, as consumers have moved, addresses have changed and telephone numbers are no longer in service. Also the old adage, “out-of-sight, out-of-mind”, really comes into play. Many consumers do not even remember a debt that old and especially not any specifics. On top of all this, collecting on old debts can create a lot of ill will towards you, our client. When an account is this old, many consumers question the validity of the bill and wonder why it has taken so long to be sent to collections. Also, in order to comply with provisions of the FDCPA, it may be necessary for us to validate the debt and you, our client, will need to be able to provide us with an accurate detailed accounting of the charges due on the account and financial agreements signed by the consumer.

So, in summary, in the state of California, a debt doesn’t simply go away after four years. The debt just becomes much more difficult to collect, as any legal means for recovery are no longer available to the creditor. This is another reason why it is so important that internal accounts receivable procedures are in place to assure that your past due accounts are referred to your collection agency as soon as possible.

CNN Money reported in 2010 that nearly 30 million adults were contacted by a collection agency regarding unpaid medical bills, and an astonishing 44 million Americans are continuously making payments towards medical debt. As the economy in America continues to worsen, I would say it is fair to assume we will see these numbers increase in 2011. As unemployment rates increase, those with medical insurance decreases, thus having a domino effect on the amount of medical debt that exists. As medical debt is turned over to collection agencies, and it goes unpaid by the patients, these outstanding balances ultimately will stay on patient’s credit for up to seven years. But what will the long term effects be when millions of Americans have tarnished credit scores from medical debt?

A North Carolina Democratic Congressman by the name of Heath Shuler has recently proposed the bi-partisan Medical Debt Responsibility Act of 2011. This proposed bill requires that medical debt up to a balance of $2,500 that has been paid off, be removed from the credit bureaus within 45 days of the payment being made. CNN Money states, “One medical debt can knock off about 50 points from an average credit score.” This proposed bill will not only encourage people to pay their delinquent medical debts, but in return will stimulate the economy by giving people the chance to clear up their credit that was tarnished by past due medical debt.

As always, this proposed Act isn’t being accepted by all. Many lenders believe they have a right to know if a consumer was delinquent on any debt. Credit bureaus and lenders are also stating that all though erasing medical debts from the credit reports will help those that have stumbled upon unfortunate circumstances; it is possible it will aid those who are perfectly capable of paying off their medical bills but may choose not to.

HIPAA 5010 compliance date begins on Jan 1, 2012; this was adopted to replace the current version X12 version 4010A1.

ICD-10-CM is a diagnostic coding system implemented by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993 to replace ICD-9-CM, which was developed in the 1970′s. ICD-10-CM is in almost every country in the World, except the United States.

HIPAA X12 version 5010 and NCPDP version D.0 are new sets of standards that regulate the electronic transmission of specific healthcare transactions. Covered entities such as health plans, healthcare clearinghouses, and healthcare providers are required to conform to the 5010 standards.

ICD-10-CM is similar to ICD-9-CM, however many improvements have been made to coding ICD-10-CM. For example, a single code can report a disease and its current manifestation (i.e. type II diabetes with diabetic retinopathy). Computer Science combined with new more detailed ICD-10-CM will allow for better analysis of disease patterns and treatment outcomes that can advance medical care. These same details will streamline claims submissions, since these details will make the initial claim easier for payers to understand.

You can find further information online at http://www.cms.gov/. There you will find detailed information on what you need to do to conform to the 5010 standards.

Our move is schedule for Friday, July 29th and we are in the process of developing plans to make it as smooth and seamless as possible. We may experience some down time while the phone system is moved, but we hope this will be minimal.
The new TSC Corporate offices will be located in Carlsbad, California, right off of Palomar Airport Road, across from Bressi Ranch. The new location is centrally located in North San Diego County with easy access to both Interstates 5 and 15 and McClellan-Palomar airport.

Our new address is: 2701 Loker Ave West, Suite 270, Carlsbad, CA 92010. There will be no change to our telephone numbers. Our move is scheduled for Friday, July 29th, 2011.

We want to take this opportunity to thank all of our customers for their continued business and support. Our new location is a better work environment, affords us the space for future growth, and the ability to enhance the technical aspects of our business. All of this will enable us to do a better job for you, our customer.