How Medical Recovery Services takes care of business

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part three in a series of stories about medical debt and Medical Recovery Services. Additional parts will be posted this week on EastIdahoNews.com. Click here to read and watch part one and here to watch part two.

IDAHO FALLS — It’s easy to vilify a medical debt collector.

Threatening collection letters, phone calls, lawsuits, wage garnishments and attorney’s fees are things no one wants to deal with. And yet, not everyone’s experience with debt collection is a bad one.

Good experiences

Bruce Herker of Rexburg says Medical Recovery Services sued him, and the overall experience was good.

“They were very gracious to us. They were very informative,” Herker says. “I just think it’s interesting that everybody’s up in arms that these people are such bad people when, in reality, they aren’t.”

His debt collection saga began years ago when he went to the doctor. Herker says he never got a bill and before he knew it, MRS was contacting him for payment.

He went back to the doctor’s office, and a worker told him they had tried to resolve the bill but were unable to track Herker down.

“I’ve lived in the same house 23 years. I’ve had the same phone number in the phone book for 35. I hadn’t changed a thing,” Herker says.

So Medical Recovery Services took over the case. Herker admits that dealing with any debt collection company isn’t the best, but says MRS is just doing its job. He ended up working out a payment plan with the company.

“It’s like if you were the weatherman on Channel 3 and you called for fair skies and sunshine and 65 degrees, and it rained all day and ruined somebody else’s stuff,” Herker says. “It’s not his fault. He was doing his job the way it was supposed to be.”

Herker isn’t alone. EastIdahoNews.com spoke with several other people who were high in their praise of the company and the attorneys who handle its caseload — Bryan Smith and Bryan Zollinger.

David Lyon, also sued by Medical Recovery Services, has multiple sclerosis. He missed paying a medical bill and it was turned over to MRS.

“They were nice, competent. There was no one screaming at me,” Lyon says. “Nobody was threatening to take me to jail, and everyone was professional.”

Lyon was going through a particularly rough patch at the time, and that’s when he says Smith gave him the chance of a lifetime.

“Bryan gave me a job. He probably shouldn’t have,” Lyon says. “I wasn’t in a really good place, but he worked with me, and he was more than happy to help me when I needed it and treated me very fairly. I can’t say enough good things about him as an employee.”