Healthcare Resource Group Inc., of Spokane Valley, which provides medical billing and coding staffing services to hospitals and large medical practices, says it has hired 70 new employees over the last year, spurred by increased demand for its services, and it’s not done hiring yet.

The company now has 400 employees in all, with more than 200 of them based in Spokane, says Chief Financial Officer Kris English. The majority of workers here—medical coders and billers—are located in 28,000 square feet of office space at 12610 E. Mirabeau Parkway.

The company still provides some temporary staffing but it’s become a declining part of HRG’s business.

English says the company expects to hire another 20 to 25 coders, billers, and follow-up representatives this year. The company’s growth has been so rapid that it now occupies nearly all of the office space available to it.

The main operating unit located there is what HRG calls its OutPartnering Center. Medical billers and coders there handle outsourced billing, collections, and follow-up services for clients.

English says between 75 t0 100 medical coders are able to work remotely from their homes. Employees not in the Spokane office or working from home have offices in the medical facilities that have contracted with HRG.

HRG is an employee-owned company and assists hundreds of hospitals and medical facilities in at least half of all U.S. states in their effort to secure payments from insurance providers and patients. Founded in 1994, HRG provides services in all areas of revenue cycle management through auditing, billing, coding, and collections, English says.

She declines to disclose the company’s revenues, but she says HRG has experienced revenue growth of between 10 percent and 15 percent per year over the last three years.

Recent changes in coding rules that went into effect last year, and the Affordable Care Act, have helped contribute to staff growth at HRG. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented new medical codes. The new codes include the addition of information relevant to ambulatory and managed care encounters and expanded injury codes to fully describe a condition.

“The new codes went into effect in October. They expanded on the specificity of coding,” English says.

“Combined with the Affordable Care Act and the impact it’s had on our profession, with the growth in coding, we have 100 coders now.”

English says HRG works with various types and sizes of hospitals and medical practices, including smaller rural hospitals and university-based hospitals.

“We’ve grown, but I’d call it responsible growth,” she says. “We try to be an entrepreneurial and innovative company.”

Fortune magazine and global research and consulting firm Great Place to Work last month rated HRG as one of the nation’s “Best Workplaces in Health Care.” HRG ranked 1oth on the list that rated the top 20 health care companies in the U.S. based on employee evaluations of their overall work environment.

Writes Fortune, “Healthcare Resource Group goes above and beyond to acknowledge its employees’ hard work with benefits like its employee-owned stock option plan and a CARE committee dedicated to planning fun events.”

The survey showed that 88 percent of HRG employees described it as a “great workplace.”

The company’s medical billers and coders, which it also calls follow-up analysts, earn an average salary of $33,280. Supervisors earn an annual average salary and cash compensation of $46,000, HRG reports.

HRG says 2,100 applicants last year responded to 158 job openings at the company. English says the company has employees in roughly half of the U.S. states, with the majority being in the western U.S.

Colleen Hays founded HRG in the California Bay Area in 1994 and moved the company to the Sandpoint area a few years later. Hays later hired current CEO Steve McCoy, as well as Chief Operating Officer and President Greg West.

English says the company is active in promoting from within. Last year, West accepted the expanded leadership role of president in addition to his role as COO. Also, Judy Griffith, a sales team member since 2012, was promoted to vice president of sales and marketing in 2015.

Fortune recognized HRG for its employee stock ownership plan.

“The most impactful way to show HRG is truly employee owned is the employee owned stock option plan, the retirement plan that grows as the company is profitable and for each employee the longer they are employed.”

Fortune goes on to say, “For an employee with three years of service, the term vested is truly apt, as it shows perfectly that an HRG employee has a real interest in the well-being of the company and the revenue being brought in as it directly affects the ESOP and retirement.”

The company offers onsite benefits including breast cancer, blood pressure, and biometric screening. HRG also offers cholesterol tests, flu shots, and subsidized offsite gym memberships.

“We communicate frequently with weekly team huddles, quarterly updates and an annual strategic meeting,” English says. “We want to be a place where people enjoy coming to work.”