HCA-Owned ARM Firm Branching Out, Expanding

The early-out ARM unit of hospital operator HCA is reaching beyond accounts receivable management services for HCA, bringing in new hospital clients.

National Patient Account Services (NPAS) is shifting from exclusively serving HCA, the largest private hospital operator in the U.S., to garnering contracts from other hospital operators.  NPAS recently announced that they had signed contracts with LifePoint Hospitals – an operator of 49 hospitals – the University of Louisville’s University Hospital, and The King’s Daughters’ Hospital in Madison, Ind.

Charlie Schuhmann, vice president of business development at NPAS, tells insideARM.com that the company has been focusing on expanding outside of HCA-owned hospitals for about a year now.  “We certainly recognize our value to [HCA hospitals], and since our service is so scalable and we handle volume very well, we want to see how far we can expand.”

NPAS is planning to add at least 100 people to the 600 staffers at its headquarters in Louisville, Ky., and branch office in Beford, Texas. NPAS will continue to focus on early-out collections rather than later stage delinquent collections, says Schuhmann.

Early-out medical collections generally focus on letter sending and calling services to self-pay patients that have not yet become delinquent enough in their bills to warrant a charge-off from the healthcare provider.  Early-out services also work with reimbursement from insurance companies.