Collections
Letter campaigns
ArkCloud generates collection letters from templates - one at a time from an account, or on a schedule from a cadence - and keeps them in a queue. It does not print, mail or email them.
Written for: Collections managers · Billing staff · Compliance reviewers
Generated is not sent
Templates and generating a letter
Sidebar → RCM Operations → Letters → Templates
Templates hold the letter body with merge fields for patient, account and balance details. You write the wording; ArkCloud supplies no reviewed template set.
- Open the account (My Work → Accounts → account) and choose the Letters tab.
- Generate a letter from a template and preview it.
- Print or export it and send it by your own process.
- In Letters (the Letters Queue), select the letters you have posted and choose Mark as Sent.
Letter cadences
A cadence is a sequence of letters on set days (for example day 30, 60 and 90). While the background worker is running, a job starts eligible accounts on cadences each morning at 07:00 and generates due letters at 08:00. Generated letters land in the Letters Queue like any other.
| Field or control | What it means |
|---|---|
| Defining a cadence | There is no screen. A cadence can only be created through the letter-cadence API by an Admin; none is installed by default, so a new organisation has no cadences and the job generates nothing. |
| Quiet days and hours | Honoured, but measured in the server's time zone, not the patient's. |
| Skip if paid | Works: a step is skipped once the balance is paid. |
| Skip if on a payment plan | Works: when the step has it set, no letter is produced while the account has an active payment plan. |
| Disputes, cease-and-desist, bankruptcy, attorney | Always checked, whatever the step says: no letter is produced while the patient has a cease-and-desist, attorney representation or bankruptcy recorded in their communication preferences, or the account has an open dispute (Patient AR → Disputes). |
What a collection letter should contain
Background, not legal advice. Letters sent by a third-party debt collector must meet the FDCPA and Regulation F requirements, including the validation information (Regulation F provides a model validation notice). A provider collecting its own accounts is generally outside the FDCPA, but state law may apply. ArkCloud does not generate a validation notice or check letter wording; whatever your obligations are, build them into your templates and review them with counsel.
- A clear balance with charges, payments and adjustments.
- How to pay, how to ask for a plan, and how to apply for financial assistance.
- How to dispute the balance.
- No threat of action you do not intend or are not permitted to take.