Birmingham Cashes In on New Accretive Call Center for Southeast

Chicago-based Accretive Health Inc has chosen Birmingham, Ala., where the Birmingham City Council approved an incentive agreement to locate a new call center that will result in at least 250 jobs, according to a story by Nevin Batiwalla at The Nashville Business Journal.

Batiwalla reports that Birmingham was chosen over Nashville. The Nashville Business Journal reported in October that Accretive was considering Nashville for the new call center.

Accretive manages billing and collections for the health care industry. According to The Birmingham News, Birmingham also won out over Pensacola, Fla., for the call center, according to Batiwalla.

Call centers are a vital part of business today. According to Susan J. Campbell of tmcnet.com, call centers help organizations manage an environment where “emotional calls, fluctuating call volumes, varying schedules and time pressure” work together to create a sometimes chaotic workplace.

Birmingham must also give $2.25 million toward equipment and site improvements. The new call center will be located at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Medical Forum.

Alabama Business News reports that the deal was orchestrated by St. Vincent’s Health System, the Birmingham Business Alliance, the Alabama Development Office, the BJCC and the city, which worked together to prove to Accretive that Birmingham “was where it needed to be.”

According to the story, John O’Neil, chief executive of St. Vincent’s, became aware last summer that Chicago-based Accretive wanted to locate a Southeast service center for its growing customer base in the region. Under “Project Shadow,” the name given to the recruitment effort, economic developers for the state, region and city worked to put together the deal.

“John O’Neil really wanted to win it,” Marvin Price, a project manager at BBA who worked on the recruitment, told the Alabama Business News. “I think the incentives deal we were able to put forward made Birmingham too competitive in the end.”

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Deborah DiSesa Hirsch is an award-winning health and technology writer who has worked for newspapers, magazines and IBM (News - Alert) in her 20-year career. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.