PRN Funding had the opportunity to exhibit at the National Private Duty Association’s Annual Leadership Conference at Planet Hollywood Casino in Las Vegas last week. Although we were pleased with both the quantity and the quality of the attendees, we left the home care trade show disappointed for a number of reasons. Sadly, the majority of the reasons why we were disappointed with the show had to do with NPDA’s poor customer service:

• PRN Funding was assigned to Booth #20 months prior to the show, however, a couple of weeks before shipping out, we were told that we were going to be in a different booth. NPDA did address this, however, the miscommunication created a bit of panic on our end, as we had already sent out marketing details about our booth number prior to the change.
• Booth set-up times and exhibit hall open and close times also changed a number of times prior to the actual show.
• The show decorator’s (LV Expo) package arrived late, and they initially missed our scheduled pick-up time.
• When we did our pre-conference email blast to the NPDA show attendee’s, one of the attendees emailed us back and said that they were displeased that we were marketing to them because they never gave permission to receive emails from exhibitors. (NOTE: PRN Funding received the permission-based attendee list directly from NPDA.)
• When PRN Funding’s crew arrived to set up the booth, the dimensions of the booth space were incorrect.
• There were a couple of times when the presenters went over their alloted time to speak, which cut into exhibit hall time.
• Once at the show, the exhibit hall open/close times changed again within a couple of hours notice in order for the show decorator to set up for cocktail hour.
• During cocktail hour, there were dueling pianos in the exhibit hall, which was a nice Vegas touch, however, it made it nearly impossible for exhibitors and attendees to interect on the floor because it was so loud.

On the plus side, the attendees were bright, professional and engaged. They approached PRN Funding’s booth, wanting to learn more about our home care factoring services, and we had a number of enthusiastic conversations.

Q: Did you attend/exhibit at the 2011 NPDA Annual Leadership Conference? If so, what were your thoughts? We’re interested to see attendees viewpoints of the show.

PRN Funding, LLC, an accounts receivable factor with funding niches in the private duty and home care industries issued a press release yesterday announcing that they will be exhibiting at the 2011 NPDA Conference next month. We’ve posted the official press release below:

Last year, PRN Funding, LLC exhibited for the first time at the National Private Duty Association’s Conference in Philadelphia. Because of the trade show’s successes, home care factoring specialists from PRN Funding plan to travel to Las Vegas to exhibit at the 2011 Conference in March.

President, Phil Cohen, and Account Manager, Joanna Schafer, will be in booth #20 March 2-4 and available to speak with home care business owners about how they can turn their Medicaid receivables into cash immediately through home care invoice factoring.

With years of experience in healthcare industry, PRN Funding has a precise understanding of the unique challenges within the private duty and home care industries. PRN Funding offers financial resources to these companies by purchasing their accounts receivable–a process known as ‘factoring’, which provides the cash needed to sustain and grow a healthcare business.

PRN Funding offers financing services to healthcare vendors. Most notable, PRN Funding offers healthcare staffing payroll funding, medical transcription invoice funding, medical coding factoring and medical billing AR funding. Most recently, PRN Funding also provides private duty home care factoring agencies.  By purchasing these companies’ accounts receivables, PRN Funding provides the cash needed for them to sustain and grow their healthcare business.  With that said, we are pleased to announce some of our most recent factoring transactions:

A Nurse Staffing Agency Finally Gets Approved for AR Financing
In an attempt to get her company started, this Illinois nurse staffing agency owner borrowed from friends and family, maxed out all of her credit cards and fell behind on her bills. Naturally, her poor personal credit was greatly hindering her ability to obtain ongoing business financing from a traditional lender.

Frustrated from being turned down, the nurse staffing agency owner started researching alternative financing options and came across PRN Funding’s nurse staffing invoice funding web site. Through her research, she learned that PRN Funding based its credit decision on her customers’ creditworthiness, rather than her own. The agency owner applied online that day and after hearing ‘no’ for so long, she was finally approved for a line of credit.

An Allied Health Staffing Agency Works with Long-Term Care Facilities
Two business partners from Louisiana knew that in order for them to start a successful medical staffing agency in a down economy, they would have to focus a specialized staffing niche. So instead of placing RNs, LPNs and CNAs, they chose to focus on providing various types of therapists to help fill gaps exclusively at long-term care facilities. Within two months of opening their doors, the savvy business partners had more shifts to fill than therapists. However, they couldn’t hire additional therapists because their cash flow was continuously held up by slow payments from the long-term care facilities.

The business partners were familiar with factoring, and they knew that most general factors wouldn’t be comfortable purchasing receivables that could consistently age out past 90 days. Luckily, a friend of one of the partners suggested they approach PRN Funding because it was a factoring firm that specialized in allied health factoring. The business partners called in on a Friday, received documents the next day, and factored their very first allied health invoice by the end of the week. Having a better cash flow allowed them to bring on three new therapists that month, and they haven’t had to turn down new business since.

Tennessee Business Owner Uses Medical Coding Invoice Factoring to Improve Cash Flow
When this entrepreneur first started her medical coding business, she coded exclusively for one physician. Over the years, the business owner’s outsourced medical coding services expanded steadily. She gradually started hiring new coders and while simultaneously adding multiple doctors to her portfolio.  Then the economy turned south, and with it, the business owner’s receivables started coming in slower.

At first, the medical coding entrepreneur tried to make up for the lack of cash flow by paying her own bills with credit cards, and paying the coders out of her own pocket. It didn’t take long before her credit cards were maxed and her savings account had dwindled. While flipping through an industry magazine, she found an ad for PRN Funding’s medical coding factoring services. According to the ad, PRN Funding’s factoring services could help her get paid quicker, so she dialed the toll-free number and was connected to a medical coding factoring specialist immediately. Two weeks later, she submitted her first medical coding invoice for factoring, and she worried less about her company’s cash flow.

Click here for more information on PRN Funding’s accounts receivable factoring services.

Health.com recently released the results of a study that ranked personal care providers as having the number one career that’s linked to bouts of depression. Nearly 11 percent of the people working in this field reported a major bout of depression.

Specifically, Health.com posted this about the caregiver career:

A typical day can include feeding, bathing, and caring for others who are “often incapable of expressing gratitude or appreciation…because they are too ill or too young or they just aren’t in the habit of it,” says Christopher Willard, clinical psychologist at Tufts University and author of Child’s Mind.

“It is stressful, seeing people sick and not getting a lot of positive reinforcement.”

Here is the Top 10 list of careers with high rates of depression:

1. Personal care providers
2. Food service staff
3. Social workers
4. Healthcare workers
5. Artists, entertainers, and writers
6. Teachers
7. Administrative support staff
8. Maintenance workers and groundskeepers
9. Financial advisors and accountants
10. Salespeople

Click here to read the entire article: 10 Careers with High Rates of Depression

Last week, PRN Funding exhibited at Decision Health’s 13th Annual Private Duty National Conference and Expo in Las Vegas, NV.

Overall, it was a wonderful conference. Phil Cohen (President of PRN Funding, LLC) and Nikki Flores (Marketing Manager) had the opportunity to speak with a number of  home care agency owners who were interested in using PRN Funding’s private duty factoring services sometime in the future.

PRN Funding is looking forward to exhibiting that Decision Health’s 2011 Private Duty Conference and Expo next year!

According to a press release issued last week on their site, the private duty factoring firm will be exhibiting again at Health Decision’s Annual Private Duty Conference and Expo next month.

Private duty and home care agency business owners are encouraged to stop by booth #209 to learn more about an alternative financing option, invoice factoring.

According to the official press release, The National Private Duty Association (NPDA) recently hired Resolute Consulting to “lead the organization’s efforts to engage relevant legislators and administrators who will impact policies associated with the issue of misclassification of workers.”

NPDA’s executive director, Kim Stoneking, explained in the press release that the organization’s members who play by the rules are placed at a competitive disadvantage when other companies choose to misclassify their workers as independent contractors.

Jim Soreng, senior account executive at Resolute Consulting, outlined three primary goals for the campaign:

1. Identify and take advantage of legislative opportunities to impact public policy surrounding private duty homecare, particularly as it relates to worker classification.
2. Take advantage of existing legislative opportunities - or create opportunities - to engage current NPDA members to attract new ones to the organization.
3. Define NPDA as the primary force in the private duty homecare marketplace advancing the industry’s legislative priorities.

Click here to read the official NPDA press release: NPDA taps Resolute Consulting to lead public policy, grassroots campaign.

Check out some of PRN Funding’s most recent factoring transactions:

A Nurse Staffing Agency Brings on a New Client
This nurse staffing agency owner was ecstatic when she heard that she had won a contract with a local healthcare network. Being an approved nurse staffing vendor in the system meant that she had the ability to fill shifts in five new facilities. The only problem with this growth opportunity is that in order to become a part of the network, the Alabama staffing agency owner had to agree to 60-day payment terms. She didn’t want to walk away from the opportunity, but she also knew that she would not be able to float payroll for that long.

The business owner remembered a postcard she had received earlier that month from PRN Funding, LLC, an accounts receivable factor who specializes in funding nurse staffing agencies likes hers. She dialed the toll-free number and within minutes was connected with a factoring specialist. After a brief interview over the phone, the agency owner realized that PRN Funding was presently accepting payments from the healthcare network, so she was pre-approved for funding. She factored her first invoice two weeks later and hasn’t had to worry about meeting payroll since.

A Private Duty Home Care Agency Gets Paid Quicker
Providing in-home private duty services and being reimbursed by a state’s Medicaid Waiver program has its pros and cons. On the plus side, state dollars are guaranteed to be paid, but one big drawback is it can take a month or longer to receive those funds. As her client list increased, the owner of a home care agency in Massachusetts was having difficulty adjusting to the state’s new invoice approval process. In short, it meant that the home care agency owner would have to wait 30 days to receive a check instead of the historical two-week turnaround time.

A month before this change in the invoice approval process was to take place; the agency owner contacted PRN Funding because she saw one of their posts on a social networking site. She was relieved to know that PRN Funding was already very familiar with various states’ Medicaid Waiver programs. At the conclusion of her initial conversation, the private duty agency owner filled out a factoring application. The following week, she factored her first monthly invoice and received cash the same day.

A California Healthcare Staffing Business Finally Opens its Doors
Without tangible collateral or a profitable operating history, this California healthcare staffing agency owner was unable to qualify for a line of credit at a bank. He found PRN Funding’s Web site late one night when he was researching small business financing solutions. The entrepreneur submitted an online application, and received a call from a healthcare staffing factoring specialist from PRN the next morning.

Within a week, PRN Funding had approved the agency owner’s first two clients, so he was finally able to start placing employees. The following week, the healthcare staffing business owner factored his first invoice, which provided him with instant working capital to pay his payroll taxes and meet his first payroll.

Click here for more information on PRN Funding’s accounts receivable factoring services.

Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-CA) introduced the Direct Care Workforce Empowerment Act last week. According to the National Private Duty Association’s (NPDA) blog, the association’s executive director, Kim Stoneking, issued a statement sharing the Act’s pros and cons with its member-base:

“NPDA supports some of the goals of the Direct Care Workforce Empowerment Act…NPDA member companies are committed to hiring and fielding a trained professional workforce of in-home companion care workers. NPDA also supports payment of at least minimum wage to in-home companion caregivers.”

However, “NPDA opposes mandating overtime for in-home companion caregivers” for the following reasons:

In some cases, caregivers spend the night in the homes of their clients. Making those overnight hours subject to overtime pay, many clients would not be able to pay for such a service. In addition, many seniors/people with disabilities usually prefer to have the same caregiver attend to their needs. “Restricting a caregiver’s work hours to no more than 8 hours/day or 40 hours/week could upset these essentially personal relationships, causing the senior/person with disability to have to settle for less care than they need, or to deal with more caregivers than they prefer.”

Click here to read more of NPDA’s thoughts on working with Rep. Sanchez and the Direct Care Workforce Empowerment Act.

Last week, BusinessWeek published an article entitled: Health-Care Bill Surprise: 1099 Nightmare, and we thought the small business owners who read The Factoring Blog should be aware of its contents.

In essence, the article says: Small business owners should be aware of page 737 of the recently-approved healthcare reform bill, as it contains a three-paragraph provision, inserted by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee to help offset the cost of the bill. In a nutshell, this insertion requires companies to report to the IRS payments of more than $600 a year to any vendor. The intent is noble: to capture $2 billion or more a year in taxes on income that currently goes unreported by contractors and small businesses.

Business advocates fear that the new rule will create a massive paperwork headache for small businesses because come 2012, the new rule will expand 1099-MISC reporting to include payments to companies, and for goods as well as services.

Read more here: Health-Care Bill Surprise: 1099 Nightmare.