Dear Michelle,
My name is Amy and I work for a home health agency. We have a current collection agency that we use in addition to our in-house collection staff but we are looking to open our own agency just for our own collections to be able to report debts to the customers credit record. How do I get information to do this and is it necessary that I take all the steps needed to open a collection agency in order to report debts?
Thank you, Amy
Dear Amy,
You do not have to be a collection agency in order to report debts (good or bad) to the credit bureaus. I did this for many years for many of the businesses that I worked for. Any business owner can join any credit bureau or all three and report their own customers debts, late payments and prompt payments to any of the three credit bureaus that they have an account with.
The reason many businesses don’t do this is because of the cost involved. Once you utilize the services of a collection agency, most agencies report the debts, if you have not previously reported them, and at no cost to you.
This is something you should consider doing if you do not want to use an outside agency and want to make your in-house collection efforts more effective.
If you want to start your own collection agency to collect debts just for your company, you would take the steps any other agency owner would take. You need to set up a name, get licensed and/or bonded, and follow the FDCPA. The agency would be an entirely different entity than your existing home health agency.
