Beth Miller has been with Medical Air Systems — a Colorado company that supplies and services the medical gas equipment hospitals depend on, from vacuum pumps to the outlets in a patient's room — for 33 years. Today she's a partner and owner. When I first met her, she was the company's accounting and HR person, working with a larger PEO. I wanted her to walk through what changed when she moved to a smaller one, and what nearly two decades in a PEO relationship has actually protected her from.
The Fee She Didn't Know She Was Paying
Beth's first PEO was a larger, well-known name. The service was fine — until she learned they were charging a commission on top of her payroll, quietly adding to her cost in a way that wasn't obvious from the invoice. "That taught me to really pay attention to the fees," she said. It's a lesson worth hearing before you learn it the expensive way: bigger doesn't always mean more transparent, and the administrative fee line on a PEO proposal deserves the same scrutiny as the premium.
What a Smaller PEO Gave Her That Size Didn't
The thing Beth values most isn't a feature on a spec sheet — it's consistency. "You pretty much all the time get the same people," she told me. When you're dealing with payroll, benefits questions, and employee issues, not being "just another number" to a rotating cast of reps matters more than most companies budget for.
When an Employee Files a Claim You Don't Believe
Every HR story eventually includes one of these. Medical Air had an employee go out on maternity leave, agree to a return date, then never show up or respond — followed by a surprise unemployment claim. Beth's PEO walked her through the process and helped her document the case. The claim was denied. That's the kind of outcome that's hard to get right without someone who does it for a living, and it's also money that would have landed on Medical Air's unemployment rate if it had gone the other way.
Surviving Two State Audits
Medical Air has been through two separate state unemployment audits under two different entities. The first was rougher — the auditor "really didn't understand the PEO relationship," Beth said. The second, with the same auditor now familiar with how PEOs work, went smoothly. Both times, her PEO supplied the documentation and walked the process with her. Both times, the company owed nothing.
The Line That Stuck With Me
"I've always felt good I would stay in a PEO, because through the years it's always paid off and made me comfortable, and also been able to provide good help for the employees." After 33 years running the books for one company, that's not a sales pitch — that's a track record.
If you're evaluating a PEO relationship, or wondering whether the fees on your current one are as transparent as they should be, let's talk it through.
Suzanna Martinez, President | PEO For The CEO