Company Name: Cost RecoveRX
Headquarters: Burbank, Calif.
Signature Product: Cost recovery services
Website: https://www.costrecoverx.com/
Cost RecoveRX’s team of NFIRS Certified experts lead the way in emergency incident response cost recovery, an important and revitalizing revenue stream. With over a decade of industry specific experience and success, we provide the prescription your ailing department needs to recover from incident response costs. Cost RecoveRX’s simple, proven system eases your financial burden by effectively recouping response costs, allowing you to focus on saving lives and property, not worrying about how to save your department!
Q&A
1. Where did your company name originate from?
We wanted our company name to be simple and to describe the services we offer and benefits experienced, and Cost RecoveRX, translates that concept very well. We offer a cost recovery “RX” (prescription) for your department’s suffering budget to get it back on track to fiscal health.
2. What was the inspiration behind starting your company?
That’s easy, the incident cost recovery mission at the heart, is a passion to help ease the financial burden being placed on the enormous number of departments in our country out there suffering a funding crisis. So much is being demanded of fire departments today, often without the level of financial support required to realistically and safely provide those services on a daily basis. The fire department is the heart of this mission, they are the heart of our communities and everything we do is centered around providing the best benefit to our client. We’ve been plugging away at this for over a decade and found that by teaming up and expanded our talents, we were able to embrace and support the NFIRS reporting aspect as well to provide a fully rounded service offering for clients in need. It’s about the best benefit for our clients, and as long as every decision we make, every action we take, focuses on that very simple and basic premise, then we’re confident we’re on the right path.
3. What is your signature product and how does it work?
We specialize in recovering incident response costs through insurance claims reimbursement and focus on fully meeting the critical cost recovery needs of our nation’s dedicated fire departments and rescue squads. “Respond, report and collect; it’s that simple,” is our motto, and represents our core process and concept. Clients simply respond to an incident, gather the data already collected at response scenes for NFIRS reporting (along with minimal additional data needed for recovery processing) and submit that data to Cost RecoveRX via our secure online web portal. The process of recovery through insurance reimbursement is an accounting of costs or expenses, represented as a “loss” for which you are filing a claim. We are this industry’s best at quantifying and qualifying those costs, and locating available/applicable coverages so they are reimbursed at the fullest levels possible by the responsible insurance carrier.
4. Why do you believe your products are essential to the EMS/Fire community?
So much is being demanded of fire departments today, often without the level of financial support required to realistically and safely provide those services on a daily basis, and departments are spending more and more time and effort working to raise the funding needed, which takes away from their core mission. Cost recovery is an innovative method to combat these deficits and has grown exponentially over the last decade into an acceptable and proven source of funding.
The insurance industry has begun to share in the responsibility for the enormous costs of incident response once again, which in large part enables the massive profit margins being enjoyed by that industry today. This is already SOP in most countries, and while cost recovery in the U.S. was actually SOP back in the 1700s, over time, it had devolved into a token policy provision found under homeowners’ fire policies that was largely forgotten/overlooked by policy holders and fire departments for the greater part, and completely ignored by insurance carriers.
Only in recent times, as funding for fire department operations and response becomes harder and harder to come by as our economy struggles; research into funding alternatives began to uncover the existence and history of these provisions, and the concept took on a whole new life, with new supporters. We have picked up the mantle and continued the mission to cultivate and normalize the concept in both the insurance industry and fire industry alike, bringing both industries together cohesively and successfully supporting the continued growth and stability of both.
5. What has been the biggest challenge your company has faced?
Honestly? Over a decade ago, we were fighting an uphill battle with the insurance industry, working to demonstrate why their role in sharing this financial responsibility is so critical, not just to fire departments and policy holders, but we have shown its extreme importance to the insurance industry itself. Without fire departments’ ability to respond and protect life and property, the insurance industry would suffer huge losses due to increased claims and it’s doubtful they would be able to continue prospering without having to increase policy rates to levels policy holders would find unacceptable. We have helped the insurance industry begin to come to terms with and acknowledge their role in the big picture.
Funding through claims reimbursement is not just the right thing to do, but is necessary for the continued survival of their own industry as a whole. We’ve helped reinstate and focus attention on the concept and to facilitate redirecting the process of funding fire department response, back to the primary source of incident response cost reimbursement, from where it diverted off course so many years ago.
6. What makes your company unique?
Every Cost RecoveRX analyst maintains active NFIRS certification through FEMA. The applied NFIRS training and certification, along with practical reporting experience, allows us the unique perspective of being fully versed and qualified, not only on the billing and insurance aspect of cost recovery, but also in the fire services reporting aspect; which is a vitally important key, since it represents the actual source from which all costing data originates. This aspect has been classically overlooked in our industry, and our fully rounded approach has enabled us to design and implement a highly effective process that outperforms other methods.
7. What do your customers like best about you and our products?
A-We asked our clients to tell us what they like best about our system and received the following input:
“Great client support.” Our clients have expressed appreciation for the exceptional support they receive. A business won’t (and shouldn’t) succeed if it doesn’t work hard to provide excellent customer support and putting our clients’ needs first is our No. 1 priority!
“Easy and flexible reporting options,” Our user-friendly web portal allows clients to quickly and easily submit reports for processing, and also allows clients to keep an eye on status and collections success so they are never in the dark about their projected funding. We offer several different ways to submit reports and information, and work with our clients specific needs. We’re also about to release a mobile application that will work on any iOS or Android handheld device, which includes a scanning and import feature for documents like drivers’ licenses and insurance ID cards, which will significantly minimize errors and time spent on handling reporting.
“Reliable payments.” Payment accountability and transparency is imperative. We believe in 100 percent transparency in reporting, keeping our clients fully informed of all funds collected on their behalf and making sure their funds are sent to them on time, every time! Clients are able to plan their monthly budgets and forecast future expenditures with the fully informed confidence they deserve and have come to expect!
8. What is the most rewarding part of serving the first responder community?
Quoting Marshall McLuhans, “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.” We don’t think any other profession embodies that concept more than the fire service, and the most rewarding part of our job is the feedback from clients confirming our efforts are helping to make their day-to-day lives less stressful, and their crews and community safer! There’s nothing better for us as crew members of spaceship earth than hearing news from clients announcing the purchase of new or more advanced equipment made possible by the funds we collect on their behalf, or desperately needed training or supplies obtained that otherwise just wouldn’t have been possible. That feedback fuels our fire at the end of the day, keeping the desire to support our clients burning bright and making each day’s hard work satisfying and worthwhile!
9. What’s next for your company?
We’re presently developing an IOs and Android mobile app that will be accessible on any handheld device out in the field for incident reporting that is about to be live.
We’re also actually expanding our NFIRS incident reporting division to accommodate more clients since the demand is growing. We had started this side of operations as a support initiative for a few clients who were having trouble keeping up with their NFIRS reporting demand at the time and were looking for a solution to their dilemma. It seemed to be a good fit and once we began, the whole idea just took on a life of its own once we realized, A.) how much we actually enjoy doing this work; and B.) that there’s an even greater interest and need for NFIRS reporting assistance out there than we had originally thought.
It’s an extremely unique niche and service that we provide for any fire department needing assistance in complying with their state’s NFIRS requirements. We are excited to help them ensure they are reporting accurate and uniform data on schedule, which ultimately serves FEMA’s mission by helping to compile the timely and accurate data needed for their diverse research and analysis projects. We’ll continue to expand this effort in line with the demand, allowing us to provide support to any department interested or in need of NFIRS reporting support services.
