ClaimTek Medical Billing Success Stories

Home, sweet home

Rita McDowell works from small town of 256

Rita McDowell spent 16 years wandering the globe before returning to her tiny corner of it to run the family cattle ranch. It's a quiet life, but ranching isn't always the most profitable business so Rita looked around for extra work.

But when your corner of the world is population 256 and the neighboring town has only 32 people, well, it's not always easy finding work.

That's why Rita founded "Show Me Medical Administrative Solutions LLC" that handles electronic medical claims for four practices nearly two hours away. The distance is irrelevant because Rita works from her farm office. It's proof that anyone can process medical claims from anywhere. Even in the middle of nowhere like Cuscumbia, Missouri that doesn't even have a traffic light. Just a gas station, post office and court house. The nearest neighbor is 1 1/2 miles away.

"I like that I don't have to get dressed in nice business clothes and head to work," Rita said. "I can work out of my home. I spent a little too bit too much time seeing the world and wanted to come back to my hometown. This area is a lot of old family farms that have been in family for several generations. Most of people I graduated from high school with are still here. This area does have a draw. The roots are here."

It's that great mid-American spirit of helping your neighbors that led Rita to medical claims processing. She sees it as a way of aiding both doctor and patient.

"I feel like I'm helping providers and helping patients," she said. "I worked for 13 years in a hospital. I like the idea of helping patients, but I don't like blood or sick people."

But how do you process medical claims when the nearest specialist is two hours away? Rita used the marketing materials that are part of ClaimTek Systems' startup package. Sure, many people know the Portland, Ore. company is the national leader in medical claims software, but the company led by founder Kyle Farhat also provides first-rate marketing materials proven to help gain new clients. It certainly helped Rita gain two mental health providers and two chiropractors with three more providers to soon join her company.

"It's not hard to get clients," she said. "The packets that Kyle sent helped a lot. Advertising helps. You have to sell yourself. One of the rules of success is to have a successful attitude even if your scared yourself. The mentoring Kyle provides is very good. Providers would ask me a question and I wouldn't always know, but I would call Kyle and get the answer.

"You get more for your money with ClaimTek. The marketing materials alone impressed a lot of providers. If you have cheap looking stuff, they don't want to take a chance. You want to go in with professional stuff because it lets them you know you're successful."

Then there's the training program. Rita processed claims for the federal government before accepting an early retirement last year. However, it was only one segment of a vast billing program. Indeed, Rita joked she didn't even know what a chiropractor did because her previous employer didn't cover them.

"I had a basic understanding of computers, but ClaimTek took my knowledge base and expanded it quite a bit," Rita said. "The training program was wonderful. The trainer was so patient. We laughed yesterday that I was making a mistake that was driving us all crazy and when I realized what it was I called her and she laughed and said she did the same thing. You feel like part of a family."

Family is important to Rita, who one day envisions her three married daughters joining the business. Maybe even her husband Willard will come off the range after driving their 100 head of cattle to market to an easier lifestyle indoors.

After all, Rita has already come home. They might as well go inside.