Selling Your Billing Business

[midwifebiller]

What we start must someday end, and I have reached that point.  Has anyone ever sold their billing business? Or maybe hired a manager to take care of all the day-to-day business so you can have some breathing room?  Would love to hear what happened and your words of wisdom.

[Michele]

We've all been there!  Just make sure you've really thought it out.  Bad days will make anybody want to sell but regret would set it shortly after.  There are brokers out there that are always looking for MBBusinesses to sell but I don't know if they are any good.  Be careful.

[midwifebiller]

Yes, we all do have "those" days--or even weeks and months sometimes.

I went to visit my business counselor yesterday and she gave me several things to work on.  Part of it is just the nature of the beast--insurance companies are not easy to deal with in the first place and it's not getting any easier (especially for out-of-network midwives). And part of it is just that this business is not quite two years old yet and still has growing pains.  So, I've got my homework assignments and I meet with her again in one month. If, after three or four months, I still want to sell, THEN she'll talk to me about the sales process.  I've been doing this for 13 years though, and I might just need a change.  We'll see.

As a sidenote, the Small Business Association offers free business counseling through many community colleges.  I have benefited from my visits with them and encourage you to seek out an SBA counselor for help with starting up, growing and bumps along the way.

[Michele]

Keep us posted!  Thanks for the info on the business  counseling.

[midwifebiller]

Long time, no post!  I was finally able to sell my billing business and wanted to check in one last time. With the help of my financial counselor, we were able to determine a fair price and one of my billers/contractors bought the business on August 1. She will pay me a percentage of the profits regularly until the purchase price is met. That way she has enough for her family and I get a regular check. We are both happy with the arrangement and I am unbelievably relieved!  People ask me what I'm going to do with myself now and I answer, "Well, I'm going to clean my house, work in the garden and just see where life takes me." I have been billing for home-birth midwives since 1997 (15 years) and I am so ready to move on.

Please excuse the reminiscing, but I have been thinking of what I learned by billing for all these years. I am a teacher by training, and kind of fell into midwife billing when my mother asked me to help her with "this insurance stuff". It certainly pulled me out of my comfort zone! But I was able to support my family (Hubby-san and three kids) while he was getting his Green Card and we were getting established in this country. I was able to support us again when he was unemployed, then under-employed for four years; I was able to give jobs to sisters, cousins and my daughter; I learned to be much more organized; and I learned to follow through, even when it was unpleasant (I have to call BS/CA AGAIN???) or even scary (talking to the anti-midwife Medical Director at BCBS of SC). I learned that I am too nice when it comes to employees and contractors, I like to train, but I really, really REALLY don't like being a manager. It has been hard to put mistakes in the past where they belong, especially one big one, but mistakes are opportunities for learning and growth. Every biller will make mistakes, and when you are dealing with someone's money, it can get emotionally charged very fast. Take responsibility for your mistakes and do what you can to make it right.

I would like to think I made a difference. I was the first insurance billing company specifically for home-birth midwives. We worked with Group Health here in WA to get better coverage for midwives and home birth. My mother was the very first midwife they agreed to cover, and I think it was only because Dad was an attorney that they would even consider her as a pilot project. Medicaid of WA was next, and we worked with them, too. I have worked with many, many insurance companies throughout the nation to get coverage/ better coverage/ OON coverage/contracted coverage/etc., for home birth midwives. We raised a nation-wide stink to get "Midwife" listed as a classification when the NPI system was being developed. I trained dozens of billers and now there are several midwife billing services, some small and some very large. I taught billing classes at Bastyr University and Midwives College of Utah, and several seminars, conferences and workshops. I will not miss sitting at the computer all day, or dealing with inept insurance reps, but I will definitely miss the midwives. I figured that I have worked with 500-600 midwives throughout the country during the past 15 years.

And I want to thank Michele and Alice for maintaining this site and offering consulting services! I availed myself of Michele's expertise a couple of years ago and still appreciate the time she took with me. When I had a question, this site was the first place I would come in search of an answer. Insurance billing is getting more and more difficult and I don't see it changing any time soon. If I could offer one piece of unsolicited advice, it would be to stay educated and stay connected. This is a great community--keep up the great work!

[rdmoore2003]

GOOD LUCK TO YOU IN YOUR FUTURE GARDENING...CANT WAIT TO BE ABLE TO DO THE SAME.

[Michele]

I don't know if I'm sad to see you go or jealous!  I can't imagine my life out of the billing world but I know I too will get there one day.  I wish you the best!

[PMRNC]

Kelly, I'm sure you will be great at whatever you set out to do... It's very easy to get burnt out in this business.   Just a small suggestion, but when you get the "itch" Turn to consulting, this way you work when you need to work or get the itch. Consulting even pays better than the billing part does and you have a ton of experience to share   Best of both worlds. I'm a firm believer that you can have it all.. family, kids, job, career..whatever

[midwifebiller]

Thanks for the advice!  Now that I have the time, Mom has asked me to come back and help her with her midwifery practice. It feels SO good to be doing this again, and now I can update her paperwork and talk her clients through the insurance process in person. Life is good!

[barb2512]

''we were able to determine a fair price and one of my billers/contractors bought the business''  I would like to know what the determining factors were. Volume? demand? number of providers? b.

[Michele]

Are you talking about to determine a selling price for a billing business?  There are several factors to consider:

*  number of years in business
*  number of clients and length of time they've been clients
*  Volume
*  profitability
*  location  (are clients all local to business)
*  equipment owned by business

Is the business something that someone could walk into and hit the ground running?  Is it a business that would not remain in the same location?  There are many things to consider.

[williamportor]

What we start must someday end, and I have reached that point.  Has anyone ever sold their billing business? Or maybe hired a manager to take care of all the day-to-day business so you can have some breathing room?  Would love to hear what happened and your words of wisdom.

JMHO - It might be better to hire a good manager (if you don't already have one) to run the day to day operations than sell your company, this would leave you free to do other things. You can spend a minimal amount of time monitoring business operations, while still collecting profits from your company. It also gives you the option to step back in to running the business, should you want to someday.