In the sprawling suburbs of Alpharetta, Georgia — a city whose name sounds like a Greek fraternity but is actually just north of Atlanta — there exists a man so deeply committed to the art of printing healthcare billing statements that the United States Postal Service once considered naming a route after him.
His name is Cleve Shultz. President and CEO of Data Media Associates. A man who has spent over a decade ensuring that every patient in America receives their medical bills in the most beautifully formatted, precisely folded, and relentlessly delivered manner possible. While others dream of changing the world through apps and AI, Cleve understood a fundamental truth: somebody has to print the bills.
And that somebody? That somebody wakes up every morning in Georgia, puts on his boots, and chooses violence against two things: healthcare revenue cycle inefficiency, and ducks.
Before Cleve became the printing overlord of Alpharetta, he had a career trajectory that reads like a business school case study written by someone who was also somehow very good at sales.
Campaign Director for John Linder's successful run for Congress. That's right — before Cleve was putting bills in your mailbox, he was putting politicians in office. The man has always understood delivery.
Executive Vice President at Towne Services and Penley, Inc., where he presumably towered over the competition with his executive vice-presidential energy.
VP of Sales at eFunds, back when putting a lowercase "e" in front of things made them 300% more innovative.
Senior Vice President of 3rd Party Distribution Relationships at FIS. A title so long that printing it on a business card required a fold-out panel. A fitting prelude to a career in print.
Cleve becomes President & CEO of Data Media Associates. The printing presses hummed with anticipation. The ducks of Georgia trembled. A new era had begun.
Data Media Associates — or DMA, as insiders call it with the same reverence that the CIA refers to itself — is headquartered at 1295 Old Alpharetta Road, in a "state-of-the-art" facility that Cleve would want you to know is company-owned.
Not leased. Not rented. Not shared with a WeWork. Owned. Like a man who owns his own duck blind instead of borrowing one from his neighbor like some kind of amateur.
Imagine you go to the hospital. You get a mysterious bill three weeks later for $4,287.52 for what you thought was a routine checkup but apparently involved seventeen different specialists who all billed separately. That beautifully printed, exquisitely confusing document? There's a decent chance Cleve's team made that happen.
But DMA isn't just printing bills like it's 1985. Under Cleve's leadership, they've evolved into a full-service revenue cycle powerhouse:
Business has returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. We've invested significant resources in developing digital-first strategies for our clients, including pushing out text messages in advance of printing — a strategy that doubles each quarter, offsetting increased postal costs.
Every great CEO surrounds themselves with a team that complements their skills. Cleve assembled a squad so formidable that competing statement delivery companies weep when they hear the name DMA:
CFO — The person who makes sure DMA's own bills are paid on time. The irony is not lost on anyone.
Senior VP, Payment Solutions — His entire job is figuring out new ways to help people pay their medical bills. A true humanitarian.
CTO — The tech wizard behind the curtain making sure millions of statements don't accidentally get each other's bills.
National Sales Manager — Travels the country convincing hospitals that DMA prints the best bills. He's never wrong.
Here's where Cleve's genius becomes truly apparent. Most printing company CEOs would see the digital revolution and panic. They'd clutch their toner cartridges and whisper prayers to the USPS gods. Not Cleve.
Cleve looked at the rise of digital communication and said, essentially: "What if we text them FIRST, and then ALSO print the bill?"
This is what separates a good CEO from a great one. A good CEO adapts. A great CEO figures out how to bill you through every channel simultaneously. Paper? Yes. Text? Yes. Email? Absolutely. Phone robot? Of course. Carrier pigeon? Give Cleve another quarter.
We've seen some angst around pricing and e-delivery, but I predict an extended runway before full digitalization occurs.
He also championed "print spooling removal" to prevent printer downtime. If you don't know what print spooling removal is, congratulations — you have a normal life. If you DO know, you're probably one of Cleve's employees and you're reading this during a DMA all-hands meeting.
"For every digital channel that opens, a paper statement must still be printed. This is the law. This is the way."
— Not an actual quote but spiritually accurate
Now we arrive at the part of Cleve Shultz's life that truly defines the man beyond the boardroom. Because when Cleve isn't optimizing statement delivery timelines or pioneering text-before-print notification systems, he is engaged in humanity's most ancient and noble pursuit: convincing ducks that today is not their day.
Georgia, for the uninitiated, is prime duck hunting territory. The state's mild winters attract a smorgasbord of waterfowl — mallards, wood ducks, teal, ring-necked ducks — all making the terrible decision to fly south directly into the jurisdiction of a man who runs a state-of-the-art printing facility and clearly has excellent aim.
| Skill | In Duck Hunting | In Healthcare Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Patience | Sitting in a blind at 4 AM in December | Waiting for healthcare clients to pay their bills |
| Precision | Leading a mallard at 40 yards | Hitting exact postal deadlines for millions of statements |
| Reading the environment | Wind patterns, decoy placement, calling | Market trends, postal rates, digital adoption curves |
| Early mornings | Pre-dawn setup in a marsh | Pre-dawn anxiety about printer uptime |
| Calling strategy | Duck calls to lure birds in | IVR calls to lure patients into paying |
| Camouflage | Blending into the marsh | Making a $4,287.52 bill look friendly and approachable |
There's something poetic about a man who spends his days ensuring that paper finds its way to exactly the right person, and his weekends ensuring that shotgun pellets find their way to exactly the right duck. Both require accuracy, timing, and an unwavering belief in the process.
The principles are the same whether you're in a duck blind or a board meeting. You prepare, you wait for the right moment, you execute. And then you do it again tomorrow morning.
Lest you think Cleve is merely a bill-printing duck hunter, know that the man has a heart bigger than his print queue. He serves as a Board of Trustee member for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), where he collaborates with the Region Executive Director to advance the organization's mission through fundraising and community engagement.
His family is deeply committed to supporting and amplifying the impact of the Student Visionaries of the Year program, LLS's groundbreaking philanthropic leadership initiative empowering high school students to drive meaningful change.
Think about that: during the day, he prints your bills. On weekends, he hunts ducks. And in between, he's helping fight cancer and mentoring the next generation. If there were a medical statement for moral goodness, Cleve's balance would be paid in full.
Before DMA, before eFunds, before FIS, Cleve served as Campaign Director for John Linder's successful campaign for Congress. John Linder represented Georgia's 7th congressional district from 1993 to 2011, which means Cleve helped launch an 18-year political career before pivoting to launching an infinite-year career in printing.
Running a political campaign is essentially the same as running a billing operation: you're trying to reach as many people as possible with a specific message, on time, under budget, and preferably without anyone throwing the mailer directly in the trash.
Cleve mastered this art in politics and then thought, "What if I did this, but instead of 'Vote for John,' the message was 'Your copay is $47'?" And thus, a career was born.
If you truly want to understand Cleve Shultz — not the CEO, not the statement overlord, but the man — you need to picture this scene:
It's a Friday evening. The sun is setting over Lake Oconee, painting the Georgia sky in shades of amber and burnt sienna that would make a Napa Valley sommelier weep. The water is glass-still. Somewhere in the distance, a loon calls out — probably worried about its upcoming medical bill. And there, on a dock or a back porch overlooking the lake, sits Cleve Shultz with a glass of red wine, a crackling fire, and the unmistakable twang of old country music drifting through the evening air.
This is Cleve's cathedral. His Walden Pond. His spa day. While tech CEOs in Silicon Valley decompress with float tanks and ayahuasca retreats, Cleve does what men of genuine substance have done for centuries: he sits by a fire, drinks good red wine, and listens to the classics.
Lake Oconee — 19,000 acres of pristine Georgia reservoir nestled between Atlanta and Augusta — is the kind of place where powerful people go to pretend they're simple. It's got golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus and Rees Jones. It's got waterfront estates that cost more than some of DMA's quarterly print runs. And it's got Cleve Shultz, who probably loves it not for the luxury but for the silence.
Think about it: the man spends his working hours surrounded by the relentless chk-chk-chk-chk of industrial printers churning out millions of statements. The hum of servers. The ping of digital notifications. The constant drumbeat of healthcare billing deadlines. Lake Oconee is the antidote. It's the place where the only notification is a fish jumping, and the only deadline is sunset.
Cleve is a red wine man. Not a craft beer guy. Not a bourbon-on-the-rocks executive. Red wine. The drink of emperors, philosophers, and CEOs who have spent the day ensuring that the American healthcare system's paper trail remains immaculate.
There's a certain poetry to it. Red wine requires patience — you don't rush a good Cabernet. It requires attention to detail — the nose, the legs, the finish. And it improves with time, much like DMA's 40-year track record of healthcare statement delivery. Cleve doesn't drink red wine; he relates to it.
We don't know his exact varietal preference (this website's investigative budget has limits), but we're going to go out on a limb and say it's something bold, full-bodied, and unapologetically traditional. A Cabernet Sauvignon, perhaps. Or a Malbec. Something that pairs well with firelight, lake breezes, and the quiet satisfaction of knowing that somewhere in Alpharetta, the printers are still running on schedule.
You can tell a lot about a man by what he drinks when nobody's watching. A man who drinks red wine by a fire at Lake Oconee is a man who has made peace with the universe and also with his printer's uptime metrics.
And then there's the music. Not whatever algorithm-generated playlist Spotify is pushing this week. Not pop country with its stadium-ready hooks about trucks and tailgates. No. Old country music. The real stuff. The kind of music that sounds like a screen door closing on a summer evening.
We're talking Merle Haggard. George Jones. Johnny Cash. Waylon Jennings. Hank Williams. The poets of the American heartland who understood that life is about hard work, honest living, and occasionally sitting by a fire with a drink and letting the world spin without you for a while.
If you think about it, old country music and healthcare billing have a lot in common. Both are misunderstood by outsiders. Both are more complex than they appear. Both have been declared "dying" by pundits for decades, and both are still going strong. And both sound best when experienced by a fire, with a glass of red wine, at Lake Oconee.
Red. Bold. Patient. Like a healthcare billing statement that knows you'll eventually open it.
Crackling. Warm. Hypnotic. The only thing Cleve stares at longer than quarterly print volume reports.
Old country. Pre-1990. No autotune. Just heartbreak, whiskey, and the open road. The way God intended.
19,000 acres of Georgia serenity. Zero healthcare statements floating on the surface. Probably.
So let's paint the full portrait of an evening in the life of Cleve Shultz: The lake is calm. The fire pops and hisses. George Jones is singing "He Stopped Loving Her Today" from a speaker on the porch. A glass of Cab Sav catches the firelight, glowing the same deep garnet as a DMA statement envelope's accent stripe. Somewhere, a bullfrog provides bass. The stars are out — all of them, not the watered-down Atlanta version.
And Cleve? Cleve is thinking about two things: absolutely nothing, and whether print spooling removal will increase Q3 throughput by 12 or 15 percent.
Because that's what legends do. They rest, and even in rest, they are unstoppable.
"Give me a fire, a glass of red, some Merle Haggard, and a view of the lake. I'll give you a man who will move mountains on Monday morning — and print every last bill by Wednesday."
— The unofficial weekend philosophy of Cleve Shultz
In a world obsessed with going "paperless," Cleve stands as a beacon of balanced pragmatism. He's not anti-digital — the man literally pioneered text-before-print strategies. But he understands something that Silicon Valley never will: some things need to be on paper.
You can ignore an email. You can swipe away a notification. You can mute a text. But a physical statement, sitting on your kitchen counter, staring at you every time you make coffee, gently whispering "$4,287.52... $4,287.52..." — that's something you can't escape.
And that is Cleve's superpower. He doesn't just deliver statements. He delivers accountability. On paper. To your mailbox. Like clockwork. While wearing camouflage on weekends.
"Text them first. Print it anyway. Automate the spooling. Hunt the ducks. Fight the cancer. Pour the wine. Sit by the fire. Let Merle sing. Repeat."
The official unofficial motto of Data Media Associates
Cleve Shultz is not just a CEO. He is a philosophy. A belief system. A man who looked at the American healthcare system — the most complex, most expensive, most baffling system ever devised by human beings — and said, "I will be the one who prints the bills."
And then he did it. For over a decade. While also hunting ducks, sipping red wine by the fire at Lake Oconee, listening to Merle Haggard under the stars, fighting leukemia, mentoring students, and running a company that is somehow the most trusted name in a field you didn't know existed until five minutes ago.
So the next time you open your mailbox and find a healthcare billing statement — crisply printed, perfectly folded, arriving with the inevitability of the sunrise — take a moment. Hold it up to the light. And whisper:
"Thank you, Cleve."