Dr. likes the work but is requesting we match fees of a southern lab 600 miles away...

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nickate

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Does cost of living factor into fee schedules?
We are in a pocket where property taxes are from $10-20k+ per year...


I just had an office send me a fee schedule from a pretty large lab in the middle south. We are in NW IL. They like our work and pickup/deliveries by the tech. (me) but want us to match the fees of the other lab that is 600 miles away.The southern lab musta had a marketing department as their fees were hard to understand as they had many procedures a la cart. So when you added all the pieces together it was actually more expensive than our lab. DONE. I agreed to match straight up. They just gave themselves a price increase.... if only I could get them to pay their bill....

Where I was going with this is that the big labs have large overhead-- from rent to supporting staff... but down south housing is cheap ( I looked up the taxes-- $2000-3000 a year for a comparable dump) so employees do not need to make $80-100k a year to survive. Hopefully they will keep increasing their fees and carry little labs up the ladder with them. Greed and profit will save the day. We have a denture lab. If my theory doesn't work.... I'm toast.:bag:
 
JMN

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Does cost of living factor into fee schedules?
We are in a pocket where property taxes are from $10-20k+ per year...


I just had an office send me a fee schedule from a pretty large lab in the middle south. We are in NW IL. They like our work and pickup/deliveries by the tech. (me) but want us to match the fees of the other lab that is 600 miles away.The southern lab musta had a marketing department as their fees were hard to understand as they had many procedures a la cart. So when you added all the pieces together it was actually more expensive than our lab. DONE. I agreed to match straight up. They just gave themselves a price increase.... if only I could get them to pay their bill....

Where I was going with this is that the big labs have large overhead-- from rent to supporting staff... but down south housing is cheap ( I looked up the taxes-- $2000-3000 a year for a comparable dump) so employees do not need to make $80-100k a year to survive. Hopefully they will keep increasing their fees and carry little labs up the ladder with them. Greed and profit will save the day. We have a denture lab. If my theory doesn't work.... I'm toast.:bag:
Everything factors into fee schedules.
Water rates, rent, taxes, employee compensation for a living wage and proper remuneration, way more than I want to list.

I know a group that does computer programming, and they don't always hire local. The staff compensation package varies based on where the employee lives, and the competition in that market, not the local market.

Now the hard part will be diplomatically not matching the next postcard that comes in.
 
PDC

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Sounds like a microcosm of today's "global economy".
 
doug

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Just being nosy, what is the difference in price, even a percentage would do.
 
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XxJamesAxX

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^^^ what Doris said. Doesn't matter what you charge them if they don't pay there bill. 9 out of 10 times the ones concerned with your fees to start with are the ones that will be your slowest payers.

I won't negotiate anything unless we have a credit card on file and I run it per invoice as the case ships out the door. They want to do that then we can negotiate.


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nickate

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^^^ what Doris said. Doesn't matter what you charge them if they don't pay there bill. 9 out of 10 times the ones concerned with your fees to start with are the ones that will be your slowest payers.

I won't negotiate anything unless we have a credit card on file and I run it per invoice as the case ships out the door. They want to do that then we can negotiate.


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That is where I am headed here... but I am not set up for cc yet. IT ISN'T CHEAP as our customers do not swipe. Any suggestions on a cc service for a very small player?
 
sndmn2

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For me 1 to 2% I wouldn't even blink. I'd just do it. 10-15% would be a different story as now your talking $20 plus dollars on a single crown. . 28% of something is better than 30% of nothing. My credit card is through Costco. Its not that big a deal for me as I only have 2 accounts that use it. Different story if all my accounts did it. I'm just a small operator. Luckily I have my wife to do the pick up and delivery with Fridays being my run around and talk to Drs day.
 
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For me 1 to 2% I wouldn't even blink. I'd just do it. 10-15% would be a different story as now your talking $20 plus dollars on a single crown. . 28% of something is better than 30% of nothing. My credit card is through Costco. Its not that big a deal for me as I only have 2 accounts that use it. Different story if all my accounts did it. I'm just a small operator. Luckily I have my wife to do the pick up and delivery with Fridays being my run around and talk to Drs day.
NO DENTISTS WORK AROUND HERE ON FRIDAY!
 
Restorationlab

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I run my credit card charge through Quickbooks now. I only have one account that pays with a card. The fee is about 3.5% but there aren't any yearly ad on fees or statement fees that happened when I was with CardConnect.
 
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That is where I am headed here... but I am not set up for cc yet. IT ISN'T CHEAP as our customers do not swipe. Any suggestions on a cc service for a very small player?

We use Labstar and it has the CC feature built in. I believe WePay is who they have a deal with. Your correct it is not cheap and for a long time I was reluctant to switch because I didn't want to "give" money away just to collect money I had worked for. But after being burnt a few small times over the years with accounts not paying and two very large times last year we made the switch.

All new accounts go on CC and we run it per invoice. Any existing account we had that was a problem payer we called and required then put a CC on file and we now run it the end of the month. We did give those existing accounts that were good payers the option to continue to pay by check if thy wanted.

I can tell you this its absolutely worth every dollar we pay. Yea it still sucks that I have to "give" that money away to collect what's already owed to me but my bank account looks so much better! All that money that money use to sit 60-90 days out waiting to be collected is now sitting in the bank account where I can do something with it.

As mentioned above that accounts receivables tab isn't what pays the bills, it looks/feels good knowing your owed X but it feels even better when X is in your account and you can do with it as you please. The faster you can collect your money the better off you are.


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highscore

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Charge what you're worth. IF the guy ain't payin' his bill... no loss. Let the Undercutting bottom feeder have his business.
 
JMN

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That is where I am headed here... but I am not set up for cc yet. IT ISN'T CHEAP as our customers do not swipe. Any suggestions on a cc service for a very small player?
I'm set up with a no-contract group through TSYS that does interchange plus. After the mess I went through I was very hard on all the proposals, gave no quarter to trailing off sentances and sideways answers. Check with every bank in town, spreadsheet the offers, and if they want a contract tell them to have a nice day and leave. Rapidly.

Dirty little secret about the one time set up fees. That is what the seller, personally, uses to get their sales $ #'s up so they can get residuals on the accounts they sell.
They are salesmen. Don't forget that. Not all of the fee is going there, but basically it goes right in their pocket.
 
Doris A

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Until you're set up for credit cards put him on a COD basis, if he refuses, send him packing.
 
JMN

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Until you're set up for credit cards put him on a COD basis, if he refuses, send him packing.
Sadly that is a rough solution. The worst one I had to grumble with allowed no direct contact method other than email to the person with the payment authority. They are not always in house. They are now on CC :D Thanking God for that one as it was every other month they ran late.
 
Labwa

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That is where I am headed here... but I am not set up for cc yet. IT ISN'T CHEAP as our customers do not swipe. Any suggestions on a cc service for a very small player?
Stripe.com seems pretty straight forward. You can set up payments per case and even for the offices that want to pay at the end of the month you can send them the amount owed with a payment link.
 
Affinity

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3% is some serious cheddar at the end of the month, and someone has to pay it. I just dont see the huge benefit it provides for that fee. Give me a flat rate unlimited use like a cell phone, and Im all in. Who will change the market? No one, because its owned by 2-3 big players. Dontknow
 
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