Another important part of your business is retaining your clients. It is very expensive to have to break in new clients constantly for you and the clients. After all, every new client means new training for you and the client, so you want to avoid that at all costs. Once you have reached a comfortable number of clients, a number where you can feel comfortable financially and time-wise, you should stay with that number. That doesn’t mean that you can’t continue to put out the word about your services in case something should happen, but there is no need to continue an active search for new clients. Your goal at this phase of your business should be client retention.
How can you be assured of client retention? That is all in the way that you handle your clients including relationship, flexibility, quality of your work, and willingness to work together as a team. A freelance medical biller is working one on one with various clients, and as such, must always remain professional and ethical no matter what the circumstances. Even if a client calls to inquire about whether his project is completed when you gave him a date two days in the future, do not allow yourself to become pressured or upset, but simply remind the client of your earlier agreement.
For clients who threaten to leave because of a minor error occasionally that you didn’t catch, you can gently explain that as much as you try to catch everything before it goes out; occasionally an error will slip by. Assure him that all errors are corrected as soon as they are brought to your attention, and that your pride yourself in producing work that is accurate in more than 99% of the cases. Oftentimes, the client is not as upset as he lets you think and only wants assurance that you will correct any errors immediately.
You will, of course, have the chronic complainer who would be upset if the paper was the wrong color. These you have to either take with a grain or salt or simply but gently explain that you do not have time to handle complaints about things that have no bearing on the issues at hand and request they stop complaining without valid cause or they will need to look for another medical billing service. This tactic usually works.