Once a month, for the next several months, we will introduce you to a member of The National List Team. We want you to feel as comfortable as possible working with us. Because most of our interaction is likely to take place on the phone, we think it might help you to have a mental and visual image of us. We’ll go in order of longevity. First on the list is Leslie Herr, Systems Administrator, who is just beginning her 13th year with NL.

Leslie Herr

Leslie is the youngest of 10 children. She was born and raised in a small ND town, population less than 200. Do the math. Her family comprised more than 5 percent of the town’s inhabitants!  She admits that as the youngest child, she was spoiled. She attended the same school for grades K – 12, with the same 9 people in her class. “It was very small, but I enjoyed it because it gave me opportunities to be involved in everything—basketball, volleyball, track, speech, band and choir.” She obtained an Associate of Arts degree from Valley City State University. Later, she obtained her paralegal certificate from Interstate Business College.

A self-described “story with an interesting twist” caught my eye last week. I follow Mike Gibb’s blog, Daily Digest, on AccountsRecovery.net. On 2/19/14, his “twist” was“A collection agency is standing up on behalf of a debtor against a creditor.” A click on Gibb’s “read more” link led me to a Public Citizen, Consumer Law & Policy Blogposted 2/18/14. Their post began, “We don’t often have occasion to praise debt collectors on this site, so it’s worth taking note when a debt collection company does the right thing.” Having worked in the debt collection industry for more than 20 years, I disagreed completely with the implied premise that a debt collection company doesn’t often do the right thing or deserve praise for what they do. My years of experience with collection agency and law firm owners and managers, debt collectors and attorneys, has been just the opposite. The people I know spend their days doing the difficult job of helping debtors find a way to pay their bills, and in the process, they help individual businesses and the economy in general in ways that we don’t often read about. I see that as the rule rather than the exception.

A self-described “story with an interesting twist” caught my eye last week. I follow Mike Gibb’s blog, Daily Digest, on AccountsRecovery.net. On 2/19/14, his “twist” was“A collection agency is standing up on behalf of a debtor against a creditor.” A click on Gibb’s “read more” link led me to a Public Citizen, Consumer Law & Policy Blogposted 2/18/14. Their post began, “We don’t often have occasion to praise debt collectors on this site, so it’s worth taking note when a debt collection company does the right thing.” Having worked in the debt collection industry for more than 20 years, I disagreed completely with the implied premise that a debt collection company doesn’t often do the right thing or deserve praise for what they do. My years of experience with collection agency and law firm owners and managers, debt collectors and attorneys, has been just the opposite. The people I know spend their days doing the difficult job of helping debtors find a way to pay their bills, and in the process, they help individual businesses and the economy in general in ways that we don’t often read about. I see that as the rule rather than the exception.

NL members in Texas, Tennessee and Mississippi now can be represented by a network of carefully screened attorneys who are available to appear when they cannot. Our focus is on compliance that exceeds industry standards, and on providing a high-quality service to our members and clients throughout the credit and collection industry. We are expanding this service into other states, based on the need expressed by our members, so please let us know which additional state(s) you would like us to service.

How NLAC got started
NLAC got started when one of our valued law firm members in the state of Texas approached us for assistance in developing a better quality network of appearance counsel throughout the state. This law firm files suits in all counties in the state of Texas. However, it is too costly for them to travel to all 254 counties for every hearing. Thus, like most debt collection firms that cover the entire state of Texas, they were hiring local counsel to make an appearance on their behalf for default judgment hearings, motion hearings, depositions, etc. Their objective was to have familiar counsel in front of the judge for their hearings. That way the courts would be familiar with the appearance counsel and the appearance counsel would be familiar with their case files, work standards and the court’s procedures. We were honored by their request, and we accepted the challenge.

Maybe, like me, you’re old enough to remember when Presidents’ Day was celebrated as Washington’s Birthday, and with Lincoln’s birthday so close, there was sometimes confusion between the two. Maybe, unlike me, you’ve known all along that there actually is no federal holiday calledPresidents’ Day. (I just looked it up today because I wanted to know when the name changed!)  In 1968 there was an act of Congress called The Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which moved the observance of most holidays to specific Mondays so people could have a three day weekends. The bill had widespread support from both the private sector and labor unions and was seen as a surefire way to bolster retail sales. Are you going out today to look for “Presidents’ Day Deals”?

At the same time, there was a proposal to rename the federal holiday of Washington’s Birthday to Presidents’ Day,in order to honor both Washington and Lincoln, but that effort failed. It is still officially called Washington’s Birthday by the federal government. President’s Day never falls on the actual birthday of any American president. It’s actually up to individual states to decide what they call the holiday celebrated on the third Monday in February, but by the mid-1980s, Washington’s Birthday was known to many Americans as Presidents’ Day. By the early 2000s, as many as half the 50 states had changed the holiday’s name to Presidents’ Day on their calendars.

The theme “Going for the Gold” was perfect for this pre-2014 Winter Olympics event—the 17th Annual DBA International Conference. It was held at the Aria in Las Vegas, with the keynote address provided by Mark Spitz, one of the most recognizable Olympic athletes of all time. A few of his remarks that resonated with me include:

• Live as if your glass is half-full rather than half-empty.  Early in my career with NL, Randy Nicola, my boss and a very wise man, once asked me: “Is your glass half-full or half-empty?” I chose to live my life, both personally and professionally, considering that my glass is half-full. Yes, there are challenging times, but it’s how I deal with those challenges that define me.

Three of our five children are old enough to remember The Blizzard of ’78 that occurred in Massachusetts during the 20 years that we lived there. With very little warning (as I recall), snow began falling just before the afternoon commute, stranding many travelers on the Beltway around Boston and other major highways. At our house (20 miles south of Boston), we were lucky. Everyone was home. I had just been to the grocery store, and we didn’t lose power. A lot of snow was a rarity for us, but that night about 4 feet fell (as measured on our driveway), and strong winds blew snow upwards and into the vents of our attic. (We discovered that when it started to melt and drip through the ceiling in our bedroom.) The Governor declared the state “closed” and forbid us to even try to go anywhere. The kids were thrilled! No school, no work, no church for a week, just plenty of time to play in the snow while the adults took shifts trying to shovel out the driveway. This was made more difficult by the fact that the snowplow that finally came only did the side of the road opposite our house, making the path we had to shovel about 10 feet longer. It  took us at least 2 days to finish the job! The pictures I’ve included show the snow banks on either side of the street and on the side of our driveway a few days later. Our now grown children are remembering that epic storm and talking about it on Facebook, as they listen to news reports about what is happening with the weather east of Salt Lake City, where most of us now live.

Are you the boss? That is, do you have employees working for you or with you for whom you are the direct report? You could be the owner and/or manager of a collection agency or law firm, or even the manager of a department in such a business. If you are, you could benefit from regularly asking your employees and co-workers what it’s like to work for you. Because happy, satisfied employees stay the longest and do the best work, it is to your advantage to get their feedback and provide a pleasant work environment that includes the benefits and other incentives that employees really want. Why spend money on practices that aren’t yielding as much benefit as you might have thought?

“Best Places to Work in Collections”
For the past six years, InsideARM.com has honored “The Best Places to Work in Collections,” celebrating excellence in small, medium and large companies. To participate in the two-part survey program and be considered for the 2014 awards, click here. You will be asked to provide information on workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics. Then, employees complete a survey that measures their experience. That’s where “What is it like to work for you?” comes into the picture. Many companies enter every year and testify that it is very helpful for them to evaluate themselves and their employees in this way.

“Collecting Medical Debt—How Aggressive Should You Be?” is consistently one of the top 3 blog posts on NL Insider, even though it was published almost 2 years ago. Because many of our readers have such an interest in matters relating to collecting medical debt, last week (1/17/14) we reprinted the HFMA/ACA press release regarding “new best practices for medical debt collection.” The intent of this follow-up is to briefly summarize some of the content in the report that is most relevant to the debt collection industry. We recommend that you read the entire report, “Best Practices for Resolution of Medical Accounts,” and adhere to the guidelines that are applicable to your business.

The Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and ACA International spent almost a year developing the guidelines, a concise list of best practices for managing patient accounts from the time a statement is sent to a patient to when the account is closed. All recommendations in this report are designed to be used in conjunction with applicable state and federal laws.

BEST PRACTICES FOR MEDICAL ACCOUNT RESOLUTION RELEASED

Provides hospitals and others with clear guidance on patient-friendly account resolution

Westchester, Ill. (Jan. 15, 2014) — Led by the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) and ACA International (Association of Credit and Collection Professionals), an industry task force of healthcare providers, account resolution groups, and others have crafted new best practices for medical debt collection.

Healthcare leaders hope the best practices will be adopted throughout the healthcare industry, offering clear guidance on resolving financial obligations before, during, and after a patient visits a hospital or other healthcare setting. The best practices are designed to improve communication between patients and providers and standardize and better coordinate all business practices related to medical account resolution.

Same-sex marriage may or may not be legal in the state(s) where you collect debt, but like most collection industry professionals, you are probably watching closely as, state-by-state, people of every sexual orientation are changing the way they feel and vote. In the process, even politically conservative states, like Utah, are facing major issues over whether or not same-sex marriages, legal for just a few days, will continue to be recognized under state law.

NL can’t give you legal advice, but you may find yourself struggling to give advice to forwarders and to prosecute or defend individual clients who have both substantial debt and a same-sex partner. Therefore, it behooves all of us to learn as much as we can before we find ourselves in the middle of a situation that we are unprepared to deal with. Because many of the issues that are arising have very little precedent, what you learn and the advice you give can change almost daily.

Imagine you are a debt collector and your company is the victim of a cyber attack, resulting in a cyber security breach. The breach has exposed all of the debtors’ information stored on your computer: name, social security number, credit card details and other personal information.

Now what?

Most business owners have never thought about the financial disaster associated with a cyber breach. They think, “It will never happen to me,” or “I’m too small (big) to be a target.” However, business owners, ranging from startups to Fortune 50 companies, are starting to wake up to the fact that anyone can suffer a cyber breach, as the attacks become more sophisticated and frequent. A recent example is that U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama’s personal identifiable information was just hacked in September.

“Flash” is not one of my favorite comic strips, but when I think of this past year, that is exactly what comes to my mind. “FLASH”! Oh my! Where did this year go……….?

As a young man, I thought the days, months and years took forever to pass by. Not to say that I’m an older man! I just realize that I have reached an age of full maturity, where time passes rapidly. The year 2013 flew by me, and it is now that time of year when we celebrate the Holiday Season with anticipation, joy and happiness!

Most of us working in the collection Industry would agree this past year has had its challenges. If I were to conduct a survey asking, “How is your business?” the words “joyful” and “happy” probably would not rank high on the survey scale.

I admit it! I was the one who suggested that NL post a blog on “How People Get in Money trouble with Holiday Shopping.” That’s not exactly what this is about! When I sat down to write, I realized that what I really know something about personally, without having to consult any “experts,” is how to avoid holiday debt. I’ve been doing it all my life!

First, I should say that I’m glad I’m not the mother of teens, tweens or even young children in 2013! I’m sure it was easier to spend less on my 5 children when they were growing up than it is for parents in today’s “electronic age.” However, I do have 12 grandchildren, ages 6 months to 20 years, a husband, 5 adult children and their spouses, along with assorted other family members and friends, who all expect Christmas gifts from me. The number of people on my gift list keeps growing, and gifts aren’t the only holiday expenses we have, but I still manage to pay off my credit cards when the bills comes in January.

A little over a year ago I had the opportunity to speak about process serving at an industry legal conference. The first slide in my deck was a drawing of a horse. I asked the audience how many used a process server who delivers documents by horse. Of course no one raised their hand. My next slide was a picture of a smart phone, and I asked how many use a process server who has deployed smart phone field technology. A few hands went up, but not more than 10-15 percent of the room.

New Technology
I explained that the smart phone and associated web browser technology were the first wave of new technology in process serving in nearly a century, the first since the automobile replaced the horse as the primary method of transportation for process servers. It was first introduced several years ago by Scott Levine, president of JJL Process. I noted that, five years from now, 95 percent of the law firms in the room will be using a process server who has smart phone and web browser technology.