Money Rant

By Arthur Clarkson

 In common with all areas of commercial purchasing you should aim to get several quotations when selecting a machine leasing company. The simple approach in the first instance is to get a quotation from the recommended finance company. The prices charged by the recommended finance provider should be close to market prices. Always be practical and recognise that you may not get the best quotation for your situation. Shop around and get multiple prices from other companies.

If you are in the market for machine leasing then it will not be difficult to locate an appropriate leasing company. The marketplace for leasing is huge and since most assets can now be leased it is simply a case of locating a finance provider who works with machine leasing. Most of the time the company selling the asset does not provide the finance themselves directly, they rely on a third party machine leasing company. You will often get a referral from the company selling the asset to their preferred finance provider.

Asset finance is a broad term describing the various methods that are employed to fund the acquisition of assets for a business. In some scenarios the equipment is not actually legally owned by the business since the finance provider keeps ownership of the asset. The key point from the business owners perspective is that they have the use of the asset in return for frequent repayments. Normally what is significant to a business is that they can utilise an asset, regardless of whether they actually own it or not, to enable their business to operate efficiently and produce greater levels of profitability.

One form of asset finance is where a business signs up to an Operating Lease. In this case the equipment belongs to the finance company who effectively hires the equipment to the business over an agreed period (usually one to five years). At the end of the agreed term the finance company will either sell the asset in the second hand market or lease it again. This means that the lease payments can be kept low because the full asset value does not need to be recovered by the finance company during the first term. At the end of the machine lease term the asset is either returned to the finance company or a further lease agreement may be put in place.

In the instance of a Finance Lease the equipment is owned by the finance company. However in this situation the lease payments are calculated to include the full cost of owning the equipment. Another approach would be for a balloon payment to be included to keep regular payments low and a larger final payment at the end of the term of the lease. When the asset is eventually sold at the end of the term the business will normally receive a share of the sales price split with the leasing company according to a defined formula. A finance lease may also include the option to extend the rental period when the lease term finished for what is known as a peppercorn rent. The peppercorn rent is a small ongoing payment compared with the size of the original payments.

In common with all areas of commercial purchasing you should aim to get several quotations when selecting a machine leasing company. The simple approach in the first instance is to get a quotation from the recommended finance company.

Customer Service Points in the Credentialing Business

By Monte Mccarty

 Quality credentialing verification organizations (CVO’s) create an environment beyond simply generating credentialing reports for medical providers. A CVO with good customer service responds quickly to questions; has trained staff that is assigned to a particular client; can streamline the credentialing process; has good technology resources; and offers extra support, such as internal audits and tracking license renewals. An emphasis on customer service means that the CVO can supply substantive information and support to establish a true working relationship with a medical organization.

There are five areas of a CVO’s customer service to consider: flexible credentialing processes which can be adapted in response to client needs; a range of quality services; quick responses to clients; individual support; and solid technology practices. Although some service points, such as a fast response to questions, can seem small, these areas display the quality of the CVO, which will define the long-term relationship between the CVO and its clients.

Adapting credentialing services to client needs.

CVOs should be responsive to their clients’ needs. The CVO should be accredited by either accrediting organization: National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) or the Utilization Review Accreditation Councile (URAC) or comply with their credentialing standards. In addition, the CVO should add new credentialing standards for their clients and should also be able to adapt their credentialing processes by adding special criteria or using a subset of criteria. This flexibility includes making recommendations to streamline processes and working with clients to determine what they need rather than following a preset checklist.

Individualized support and quality controls.

Individualized service means that there is a dedicated representative for each client. There should be a known manager to handle difficult situations and an established route to lodge complaints. All personnel should be trained to perform credentialing reports according to the accrediting organization’s standards.

There should also be an established quality control system and regular internal audits for managing feedback, rewarding good service, and evaluating bad practice. The CVO should be able to supply a copy of their quality control policies and practices documentation. If they are accredited by NCQA or URAC, then there is a guarantee that these practices have been reviewed and audited and that their service meets industry standards.

High quality services.

Two attributes of quality work are timeliness and thoroughness. Good CVOs will return credentialing reports as quick as industry norms, meaning around 60 days for hospital standards (JCAHO) and 30 days for managed care standards (NCQA and URAC). The credentialing reports will also be complete - no missing data or criteria and with full supporting documentation. CVOs should have an established maximum number of requests they make to organizations for information and other avenues of finding information. Problem files should be brought immediately to the review committee’s attention. All of these practices work together to make a thorough credentialing report.

Additionally, good CVOs offer services such as tracking licensing dates and requirements (expirables) and disciplinary actions by various organizations (surveillance); consulting and training classes about credentialing processes; and support during internal audits.

Quick response to client contact.

Good CVOs respond to questions within 24 hours. They should answer any questions fully and as quickly and directly as possible rather than postponing or transferring them.

Technology resources.

CVOs should be using the most recent technology, such as databases, paperless credentialing, and web access with adequate security and access control.

Customer service is key to creating a good relationship between CVOs and medical organizations. Quality control policies, flexible credentialing processes and criteria, quick response time, good technology use, and responsiveness to questions and requests are five major areas where a CVO develops good customer relations. All these areas mean the CVO is responsive - that the CVO is paying attention to individual customer needs and consistently doing its best to meet them.

Learn about ways to prevent pregnancy, almond allergy and other information at the Health And Nutrition Tips site.

Your Source For The Latest Money News Information Online

Are unjust bank charges claims coming to an sudden stop?

By keith lunt

 The Office of Fair Trading has lost its battle in the Supreme Court to decide whether banks possibly will fairly impose charges that go above the costs they incur. Is this the end of the unfair bank charges claims for customers?

A 2-year legal case concluded a 4-year campaign to win refunds by those who considered that they had been overcharged by banks after they had fallen into unauthorised overdrafts. But the right of the FSA to decide whether the charges were excessively high has been held back from them.

The Supreme Court ruled against earlier finding by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal, declaring that the OFT did not have the right to decide whether bank charges were fair. This has removed the probability of millions of bank customers attempting to claim back an estimated 20 billion in what they called excessive charges.

The Supreme Court ruled that the overdraft charges formed part of the process of renumeration of the package of services that the banks offer to their current account customers.

The banks have promised to work speedily to bring to a conclusion all excellent complaints. It is probable that in the light of the Supreme Court ruling that scores of of these will now be thrown out with no recourse to appeal.

It was prone that todays ruling should go in favour of the OFT and that the FSA should then be able to lift its waiver on further claims, allowing millions of customers to begin their reclaim process. But those superb claims are now worthless, unless the OFT can take the decision to the European Court of Justice and have the decision over turned.

The flip side to this decision is that it has also been talked about this week that banks might introduce levies such as cash machine charges in order to recoup lost earnings via reduce unauthorised charges. Hopefully, these apt charges possibly will be held off and those customers that keep their accounts in good standing and never go overdrawn will not be forced to pay charges for what has traditionally always been a free banking service.

Keith Lunt writes for Compare Mortgages where you can read more about the fall of the bank claims story and a lot more.

economic money

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.