I helped work denials for a clinic as a part time gig. I found them way more $ than they paid me. I feel you! Now that I would have done for 10% of what I earned for them and still made bunk.

And if I do all the investigating and don’t find anything I just wasted a lot of time for zero dollars. Not all billing is nefarious or incorrect. I’ll keep my day job.

Start with your insurance policies. Does it look like they were covered appropriately per what your policy states? Get itemized billings from the medical providers and check the COT codes and descriptions against what happened at the visit. Get the records if necessary to compare documentation against what was billed. Call the medical provide and ask questions. Call the insurer and ask questions. That’s where I’d start.

HIPPA doesn’t require medical record requests to be notarized.

That would be a thought and one I looked at when it was considering doing this. But what nonprofit? You need one already involved with medical services and has a way to find this clientele plus pay someone to do this. I stopped there a decade ago. Maybe when I retire I’ll volunteer somewhere but for now medical coders are in demand and we can make more working regular medical coding gigs.

Requests for records do not need to be notarized.

Again someone who had a high deductible insurance plan most like doesn’t have a couple hundred around to pay someone to do this. This clientele with money to pay for this service doesn’t exist.

Insurers already do this for their benefit and when they are stuck with the bill. If it’s a high deductible plan and the patient is liable they aren’t spending their time and money on this. If they are footing the bill it’s another story. I’ve been in this field for more than … !! 30 years, I’ve worked for a hospital, private practice, specialty center and now am on the insurance side.

Nothing. It wouldn’t be necessary.

LMAO at streamlining anything in regards to medical insurance in the USA. There are 4 employees that are billing related to every provider, and that’s just on the medical side. Medical insurers all have different billing systems, EOBs with info in different spots. Same with providers. You are investigating if it was billed correctly (documented correctly) and or paid correctly. Everyone answering here telling me you could make a living doing this for work has never worked with medical billing. But you are all giving me a nice laugh today.

That $100 also took me hours of work, phone calls, digging through their medical policy to make sure they had coverage (or didn’t) plus reviewing itemized billing. I’ve totaled up my time for when I’ve done this, especially complicated cases with high dollars and I’d make more at a minimum wage job. I did seriously look at this as a business model, it’s not profitable.

But the clientele for this group is mainly people with high deductible insurance policies or no insurance. Not really the clientele that keeps lawyers on retainer.

I wish. I’m a medical coder and have helped family and friends with their medical bills. There is zero money in this. Believe me, I thought about it as a side hustle more than a decade ago.

For a $10 grand bill, I’ve negotiated and fought down several thousands. and…the patient still had several thousand to pay. In that case what could they have paid me? It’s be easier if the insurer or facility could do something, but no one is paying to advocate for the patient except the patient. And not a lot of patients have any extra money to pay someone to do that. Also to review a case took me hours or paperwork + time in the phone, PHI release forms etc. I make more at my regular job and it’s less frustrating.