Most practices compare a billing company’s percentage against a biller’s salary. That is not the comparison. Salary is roughly two-thirds of what an in-house biller costs. Put your own numbers in and see the whole figure.
What actually lands in the bank each month, not what you bill.
Count part-time honestly — a front-desk person doing billing half the day is 0.5.
Employer taxes, workers’ comp, insurance, paid leave. Commonly 18–28% on top of salary.
What an hour of your time is worth, not what you pay yourself.
Published rates generally fall between 4% and 10%, most often 5–8%.
Coding, credentialing, patient statements, eligibility, prior authorisation — whatever the quote excludes.
This compares cost only. It says nothing about whether either option collects more of what you are owed — and that difference is usually larger than the cost difference.
Every assumption is visible and editable above. Nothing is hidden in the maths, and there is no thumb on the scale — the same formula runs whichever answer comes out ahead.
These are real costs, and excluding them means the in-house figure shown above is conservative — the true number is usually higher:
It happens, and the calculator will show it. Percentage-of-collections pricing tracks revenue, not workload — so a practice with high collections and a low claim count pays a lot for relatively little work. If you submit a modest number of high-value claims, run the numbers and then ask any billing company for a flat monthly fee instead. If they will not quote one, that tells you something.
The other case: your billing already works. If claims go out within a day or two, denials are worked rather than resubmitted, and your A/R over 90 days is under control, the honest advice is to leave it alone.
Send us your A/R aging report and we will tell you what is actually collectible, what is close to timing out, and whether the problem is cost at all. If your billing is working, we will say so.
Request a free A/R review