Should Your Company Hire a Medical Billing Business Development Person?

In the competitive landscape of medical billing, companies constantly seek effective strategies to drive growth. One question that frequently arises is whether to hire a dedicated business development professional. This comprehensive analysis examines the pros and cons of bringing on a medical billing business development specialist for your company and explores alternative strategies that might better serve your growth objectives.

Understanding the Medical Billing Business Development Role

Business development (or “biz dev”) has varying definitions across industries. In the context of medical billing, it typically describes a professional who handles the entire sales cycle—from generating leads to closing deals. This differs from a pure sales role, as biz dev professionals are expected to:

• Leverage existing contacts from their professional network
• Actively pursue new potential clients
• Build relationships with prospects
• Move opportunities through the sales pipeline
• Close deals with decision-makers

While this sounds appealing on the surface, especially for medical billing companies looking to scale quickly, the reality often proves more complex than anticipated.

The Challenge of Finding the Right Biz Dev Talent

The fundamental challenge with hiring a business development person lies in finding someone who excels in both lead generation and closing deals—a rare combination of skills in one individual. This unicorn-like talent profile presents several obstacles:

• Cost considerations: True business development professionals with proven track records in healthcare often command base salaries of $200,000-$300,000+ annually, with additional performance based variable compensation
• Extended evaluation periods: Unlike marketing roles that can demonstrate impact within 3-6 months, properly evaluating biz dev performance often requires a full year
• Skill set mismatch: Most candidates at best can excel either at relationship-building or closing deals, but rarely both

As noted in Voyant Health’s analysis of medical billing business growth, expanding your medical billing business requires strategic investments, but these must be allocated wisely to maximize ROI.

When Hiring a Biz Dev Professional Makes Sense

Despite the general recommendation against hiring a dedicated business development person, certain scenarios might justify this investment: Enterprise-Level Target Clients

If your medical billing company targets hospitals or health systems, relationship-based selling becomes crucial. In these environments:

• Decision cycles are lengthy (often 6-18 months)
• Multiple stakeholders influence purchasing decisions
• Established relationships with CFOs and administrators create entry points

In such cases, hiring someone who brings established relationships with key decision-makers in these organizations might justify the expense.

More Effective Growth Alternatives

For most medical billing companies, especially those serving the ambulatory market, more effective alternatives to hiring medical billing business development include:

1. Invest in Targeted Marketing

Allocating your budget targeted digital marketing initiatives almost always yields better results than spending 5-10 times that amount on a business development salary. Effective marketing strategies for medical billing companies include:

• Specialty-focused content marketing: Creating resources tailored to specific medical specialties you serve
• Digital lead generation: Implementing SEO, PPC, and social media strategies to attract qualified prospects
• Referral programs: Developing systematic approaches to generate referrals from existing clients

Voyant Health’s guide on medical billing marketing strategies provides a comprehensive framework for developing these initiatives.

2. Owner-Led Sales Approach

As the owner or executive of a medical billing company, you remain the most compelling salesperson for your services because:

• You understand the business comprehensively
• You can make immediate decisions regarding pricing and contract terms
• You demonstrate commitment and stability to potential clients
• You have the authority to address concerns directly

3. Split the Functions

Rather than seeking one person to handle all business development functions, consider separating lead generation and sales closing roles. Following is a simple table that illustrates a better alternative to hiring a medical billing business development resource:

Function	Investment	Timeline	Evaluation Metrics
Marketing/Lead Generation	$50K-200K annually	3-6 months	Lead quantity and quality, conversion rates
Sales Person	$150K-300K annually	Start after lead flow established	Close rates, contract value, client retention

How much you spend in marketing is largely determined by what your topline growth goal is, which is fully explained in Voyant’s guide to budgeting. This approach allows you to:

• Isolate variables for better performance evaluation
• Stagger expenses based on business needs
• Match specialized talent to specific functions

Scaling Your Sales and Marketing Operations

For medical billing companies targeting 7-figure or even 8-figure annual growth, developing a structured sales and marketing department makes more sense than relying on individual biz dev talent. This might include:

• Marketing specialists focused on lead generation
• Sales representatives dedicated to closing deals
• Account managers handling client relationships
• A Chief Revenue Officer overseeing the integrated strategy

Even the largest revenue cycle management companies with nine-figure revenues typically maintain separate marketing and sales functions, rather than blending them under a medical billing business development umbrella.

Making the Right Decision for Your Growth Strategy

When evaluating whether to hire a medical billing business development resource, consider these guiding questions:

• Are you targeting enterprise clients where relationship selling is critical?
• Can you afford both the very high salary and the extended evaluation period required for a skilled biz dev person?

For most companies, the answer to these questions suggests alternative growth strategies will deliver better results than hiring a dedicated medical billing business development professional.

Conclusion

While the idea of hiring a medial billing business development person to drive growth for your company might seem appealing, the evidence suggests this approach is incredibly expensive to execute effectively and rarely delivers the expected results. Instead, focus on developing effective marketing strategies to generate leads, consider handling sales yourself as the business owner, or split these functions between specialized professionals. By taking a more strategic approach to business development, you’ll likely achieve better results while conserving valuable resources for other aspects of your business growth.