Paul Zuelke first learned how to identify risk, and to grant credit appropriate to that risk in 1970 when he went to work for Beneficial National Bank.
In 1980, he started Zuelke & Associates, and used what he had learned to teach doctors (medical and dental) that they could dramatically improve their case acceptance and practice growth by being tremendously liberal in credit granting with the patients deserving of that flexibility.
Mr. Zuelke wrote an algorithm to teach a computer how to interpret information on a patient history document and to use that information to make a credit decision based on the responsible party’s maturity and stability in the community.
He knew the product would work but the huge cost of creating and marketing the program, if not beyond his financial means, was at least beyond his risk tolerance and he shelved the idea.
Brett Blake of Acceptx Financial Solutions, Inc., learned that Mr. Zuelke had this somewhat conceptual product. He offered to fund its development and together they created the Zuelke Automated Credit Coach (ZACC).
OrthoBanc, LLC. purchased ZACC from Acceptx in October 2010.
ZACC integrates into Dolphin, IMS, and Dolphin orthodontic practice management software systems.
The algorithm is designed to read and accurately interpret every line and every column of an actual credit report. That, along with the maturity and stability information, has allowed us to create a credit grading product that is highly accurate in identifying the lowest risk, the greatest risk, and all those in between.
ZACC takes very limited and basic information from the Patient History document, obtains and reads real-time credit data (supplied by TransUnion) and returns one of 7 credit grades, along with the recommended minimum down payment (if any) and the maximum recommended contract length, all in about 5 seconds!
It is important to note that the ZACC inquiry does not show up as an inquiry on the patient’s credit report and does not in any fashion influence or impact the patient’s credit score.
Knowing a patient’s/responsible party’s credit grade is highly valuable as well to a financial coordinator or to hospital collection agents who have to conduct collection activity on a delinquent account.
Best of all, ZACC is inexpensive. There is a one time only “sign-up” fee of $149. Beyond that, there are no other monthly or annual costs of any kind other than a low fee per inquiry.