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Chattanooga: Immune in crisis: Collection agency plans major expansion

By: Brian Lazenby
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Dallas Brunton

Staff Photo by Allison Kwesell
Rebecca Edwards, right, goes through computer and call pre-legal training with Crystal Lee, center, at North American Credit Services. The two are making medical collections calls.

As an economic crisis sweeps across the nation, some industries appear invulnerable.

North American Credit Services, a Chattanooga-based health care billing and debt collection agency with more than 200 employees, is planning a significant expansion.

“We continue to grow,” said Dallas Bunton, president and chief executive. “A lot of folks don’t know we are here. We are like a sleeping giant.”

The company expects to hire between 30 and 50 more employees by the end of the year, and Mr. Bunton said he is planning to build an additional two-story office building at its 2810 Walker Road campus.

Mr. Bunton credits the growth to the company’s philosophy, which is unique in the debt collection industry.

“I want people to be treated like I would want to be treated,” he said, noting that all his collection agents are taught to sympathize with debtors’ problems and to treat them with respect.

“They know I won’t tolerate any abuse from our employees. That is something we are very strict about,” he said.

The philosophy and business culture employed by North American Credit Services has earned the company respect within their industry and continues to attract business from health care facilities across the country.

It also helped the company become one of 55 out of 5,300 companies to receive accreditation by the professional practices management system.

Jake Johnson, an North American Credit Services administrator whose job it is to ensure that the company maintains its high standards that led to the accreditation, said the company began working toward its accreditation goal in 2001.

“It is a big achievement,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’ve worked really hard to achieve it.”

The company is audited periodically to ensure it is meeting management and training standards. Mr. Johnson said the company is up to be re-certified in August.

“We are constantly working toward it,” he said.

Mr. Bunton said the company also will work with hospitals to adjust bills for some debtors who qualify for charity.

“Nobody asks to get sick,” Mr. Bunton said. “We don’t make any money off of it, but we can go to bed at night knowing that we helped them.”

North American Credit Services was founded in 1979 in a downtown office near Memorial Auditorium.

Mr. Bunton took the helm in 1982 and grew the 10-employee business into the more than 200 that work there today.

“We have grown from 10 employees and processing about $200,000 a month, which would have been about two and a half million a year in receivables placement,” he said. “Now we have 200-plus employees, and this year we will go over $1 billion in revenue cycle management for health care.”

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