Avea Solutions Blog

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Avea Solutions had the privilege of hosting Bryan Haslam, Shelby Skabelund, and Cody Jensen, founders of Aspen Ridge Medical Billing, at our Portland headquarters to learn more about how AveaOffice is helping make their vision a reality.

Bryan singled out the lack of quality customer service in addiction recovery as a motivator for establishing Aspen Ridge. “It’s horrible. There’s no transparency. I’ll sit down and ask owners how much they billed last month, and they have no way to know what they actually got. It’s just not out there.”

This lack of visibility, coupled with a desire to offer a service that values integrity and trust, inspired Bryan, Shelby, and Cody to start the Utah-based billing company in 2016. Their goal is to use their combined industry experience to bring behavioral health billing up to the same level as insurance billing for family physicians.

“We believed that if we did the right things with the right systems in place, we could change these facilities for the better,” Shelby said. “It’s frustrating when you’re sitting with a CEO of a company talking about billing, and the only way he knows what’s going on is the invoice he gets from his billing company. Insurance billing for addiction recovery and eating disorder treatment centers is so new, they don’t quite know how to do it themselves.”

The three were in the process of talking to programming groups about creating a claims tracking system when they discovered AveaOffice.

“What Avea allows us to do is track everything. Right now, it’s like these facilities have a laundry basket full of change and dollar bills, and someone’s shaking it and money’s flying out of the sides. We’re just coming along with Avea and duct taping all around that laundry basket,” Shelby said. “Now we’re keeping the money inside by making things more efficient, which makes it easier for them to be more charitable for people who can’t afford treatment.”

“We couldn’t do it without Avea,” Cody added. “We know that, because Shelby and I tried with another billing company for a few years.”

Bryan agreed. “To have that structure and those processes in place is enormous. Having it all in one location, instead of on a Google Drive spreadsheet. What we have and what Avea has, it’s just not out there. There’s nothing else like it.”

Avea CEO Ben Dittman said the company’s relationship with Aspen Ridge has been successful in large part due to both parties sharing a common purpose.

“We started out with the goal to be the backbone for centers of excellence and integrity, and to make a positive difference,” Ben said. “To come across a group that has the same point of view and wants to embrace that integrity piece, that understands the market is going to change, and that shares our vision was really lucky for us.”