Case Study: Meridian Health achieves $1.1M bad-debt reduction and $1M+ annual recoveries with FICO RMS

Spinning straw into gold How Meridian made bad debt pay off

Meridian Health, a large New Jersey healthcare system, faced a $46 million cumulative bad-debt problem made worse by ten disparate collection agency relationships, billing errors, double fees and no way to tell when accounts were uncollectible — all while needing to maintain HIPAA compliance. The lack of monitoring and reconciliation left Meridian overpaying agencies and unable to compare performance or enforce recovery policies.

Meridian implemented FICO Recovery Management System (RMS) and Debt Placement Services via the FICO Network to automate rules-based workflows, secure HIPAA-compliant data exchange, agency tracking and fee calculation. The changes produced an ROI in under six months, reduced bad debt by $1.1M in year one, averaged more than $1M per year in secondary recoveries, cut collection fees by roughly $1M over two years, and allowed Meridian to consolidate agencies and enforce policies like a 180-day primary window and a five-day payment exclusion.

Meridian Health

Marilyn Koczan

Meridian Health