ClaimTek Medical Billing Success Stories

Smalltown, USA?

Hiatt and Pankey found gold in them thar hills

Betty Hiatt and Sondra Pankey are in the middle of nowhere. Not to be mean, but Hermiston, Ore. is three hours away from Portland, which isn't exactly Gotham City.

The small town of 13,000 may be a great place to raise a family, but was it a great place to start a business? You bet!

The pair is earning more than $100,000 each annually. Growth threatens to overwhelm them. And this is in the middle of nowhere. Imagine the opportunities near major cities?

"It's just been booming from the start," Betty said. "The growth is so tremendous we're almost afraid of it. There will come a time when we could hire additional help, but we want to stay smaller and do better customer service."

The Columbia River Billing Service, named for the river that snakes through the small town, is typical of how anyone can succeed in medical claims processing. Every town with a doctor no matter how small provides a market in this growing field. New York City keeps thousands of processing companies busy while every Small-town, USA has people like Hiatt and Pankey making money.

Indeed, the two friends knew they were worth more than the weekly paychecks for handling hospital claims. Slaving away for someone else's profit wasn't their idea of the American dream where those with gumption and hard work will succeed.

"There's money to be made. We had to do something," Betty said. "It was hard to sit there making $35,000 a year when there's potential for $100,000."

The two considered other franchises from "sub shops to whatever" before deciding to remain in medical claims processing.

"Everything I read said those who do something they're really good at are 90 percent successful," Betty said.

Partnerships from the start are unusual, though not unheard of. The friends decided their contrasting styles would make them stronger as a team. They even share the same birthday -- January 24.

"Where I'm weak, Sondra is strong so it's a good balance," Betty said.

The duo also found being their own bosses provides a good balance between family and business. Each has two children so taking off for school activities is easy when working for themselves. Betty's husband Michael even left his job to join the firm.

"I like the flexibility," Betty said. "I can leave without feeling guilty. I love being able to go on field trips."

Betty and Sondra usually filed paper claims when working at a hospital. It sometimes took 60 days if nothing went wrong, which it regularly did to restart the payment clock. Electronic claims take only a few days to receive payment so the two women were suddenly besieged by those wanting the latest technology. After all, who wants to wait two months instead of less than one week?

Switching to their own company made Betty and Sondra search for the latest technology. They found it at ClaimTek Systems. The software programs are unmatched in the field of electronic claims processing and the two experienced professionals quickly recognized ClaimTek's superiority over other companies' offerings.

"It's just really user-friendly," Betty said. "It was easy to understand. The materials are written for someone who isn't a medical professional. The other companies had software that wasn't formatted well. Anyone who didn't already know billing would have found them impossible to use."

ClaimTek's marketing and business brochures were also essential for the startup business to attract customers by offering a big-time look.

"ClaimTek provides all your contracts," Betty said. "It's so simplified. You just print out the contract and the doctor is so impressed that they don't blink an eye when charging seven percent commission and a $1,000 setup fee."

Maybe doctors didn't blink an eye for fear of missing a good deal. After all, a company offering big city service in a small town isn't easy to find. Just ask Betty and Sondra's growing number of clients.