Free Guide for Practice Owners

You hired a billing company. So why can't you see the work?

Five reports a real partner sends without being asked. Three questions that expose a vendor pretending to be one. The exact language patterns that signal something is being hidden, and the emails to send when the numbers don't add up.

Get the free guide 23 pages. No sales call. Read it once, send the three questions, see what comes back.

Initial claim denial rates hit 11.8% in 2024, up from 10.2% just a few years earlier, and over 60% of practices reported higher denial rates last year than the year before. The practices that don't see their own numbers are the ones absorbing the loss.

Sources: OS Healthcare / MGMA 2024 Benchmarking Report on Denials and Appeals

What's inside

Card 1: The Five Reports

Your billing company has this data right now. The question is whether they're showing it to you.

Every report in this section comes out of the same practice management system your billing company already uses. How long it takes you to get paid, calculated the right way, not the way that cuts the number in half. Aging broken out by individual payer, not buried in a category average. Denial rates measured by the dollars being lost, not just the claim count, including the reason each payer gave for every adjustment and denial. How long it takes a claim to leave your office after a visit. And whether every payment received matched what your contract says you should have been paid.

Each report includes the specific number that signals trouble, the ways this report gets quietly skewed to look better than it is, and the exact email to send your billing company today to find out whether the work is actually happening.

Card 2: The Three Questions

Send these this week. The answers, and how fast they arrive, will tell you everything.

These are not trick questions. They are basic accountability questions that any competent billing partner can answer within one business day with specifics. What percentage of the money you are owed is more than 90 days old, and why? What are the top reasons your claims are being denied, and what is being done to stop the pattern? Can you show me one recent claim where someone actually read the chart and confirmed the right code was billed?

Every question comes with the exact script to copy and paste into an email, a real example of what a partner's answer looks like, and a real example of what a vendor's answer looks like. If the answers you get back sound like the vendor column, you now know what you're paying for.

Data More than 60% of practices reported higher denial rates last year than the year before. Source: MGMA 2024 Stat Poll

Card 3: The Language Patterns

Most billing evasion doesn't sound like lying. It sounds like this.

Eleven phrases that show up when a billing company doesn't have the data to give you a straight answer. "Your A/R looks healthy." "That would be a custom build." "We're working on appeals." "That's how our system reports it." Each one is paired with what is probably actually happening underneath it, and the follow-up question that gets you a real answer instead of a reassuring one.

The most important phrase in the guide is the last one: "We can't share the raw data, only the report." That sentence means you cannot verify a single number you have been sent. Your remittance files, your clearinghouse logs, your aging exports, that is your data. A partner gives you access to it. A vendor sends you a PDF and calls it transparency.

This is for you if

You outsource billing and aren't sure you're getting full value from your partner.
Your monthly reports have looked the same for as long as you can remember.
You've asked a billing question and gotten a screenshot back instead of an answer.
You suspect you're leaving money on the table but can't prove it yet.
You're evaluating a new billing company and want to know exactly what to ask.

Data 92% of medical group leaders reported higher operating costs in 2024 than the year before. Most practices cannot afford to also be losing revenue to billing they can't see. Source: MGMA Stat Poll, June 2024

Who wrote this

I'm Mindy Corbett. More than two decades in healthcare revenue cycle, on both sides of the outsourcing relationship. CSPO, CPC, CPB, CPPM. I've built billing operations inside health systems and audited billing companies from outside. I've seen excellent partners. I've also seen billing companies quietly costing their clients more than they save.

This guide is the framework I use when a practice owner asks me to look at their billing relationship. The same reports, questions, and language signals I'd walk through if you hired me directly.

You can use it without hiring anyone.

Research reference

Sources behind every data point used on this page.

Claim	Source
Initial denial rates hit 11.8% in 2024, up from 10.2%	OS Healthcare / MGMA 2024 Benchmarking Report
More than half of U.S. organizations report denial rates exceeding 10%	MGMA 2024 Benchmarking Report on Denials and Appeals
Over 60% of practices reported higher denial rates in 2024	MGMA 2024 Stat Poll
92% of medical group leaders report higher operating costs in 2024	MGMA Stat Poll, June 2024
Net revenue leakage from denials grew 25% in 2025, exceeding $48B	Kodiak Solutions RCA Benchmarking Analysis, 2026
HFMA: hospitals lose average 4.8% of net revenue to denials	HFMA Pulse Survey
Admin cost per denied claim rose from $43.84 (2022) to $57.23 (2023)	Industry data via MGMA / Aptarro
U.S. providers spend $19.7B annually on denial overturn work	AHA Center for Health Innovation, 2024
Payer audit volumes rose 30% YoY in 2025	MDaudit, 2025
1 to 3% underpayment rate equals six-figure annual loss for 20-provider group	MD Clarity, citing HFMA data