Hand over your billing, or hire your own biller? How to choose

When billing isn’t working, practice owners usually feel it before they can measure it. Payments come in slower. Denials sit in a pile. Nobody can say for sure how much is still owed.

There are 2 common ways to fix it. You can hand the whole job to a billing service, or you can have a dedicated biller who works only for you. Both work. The right one depends on how much you collect and how much control you want.

We offer both, so this article isn’t about which one we sell. It’s about which one fits your practice.

The numbers

Billing services usually charge a percentage of what they collect for you. Pricing guides from billing vendors put the range at 4% to 10%, with most quotes for small and mid-sized practices between 5% and 8%. Complex specialties often pay more. Some charge per claim, often $3 to $12, or a flat monthly fee.

A dedicated biller costs a fixed amount, whatever you collect. A local US medical records specialist averages $56,790 a year, about $81,129 with benefits and payroll taxes (BLS, May 2025). A remote biller through Benchwell is $2,800 a month, or $33,600 a year.

Here’s how a 6% fee compares with a fixed $33,600 at 3 practice sizes:

Collected per year	Billing service at 6%	Dedicated remote biller
$500,000	$30,000	$33,600
$1,000,000	$60,000	$33,600
$2,000,000	$120,000	$33,600

At 6%, they cost about the same at $560,000 collected a year. Below that, a percentage service usually costs less. Above it, a dedicated biller usually does.

How each model works

A billing service takes the job off your hands. They run claims, payments, denials and follow-up, and send you a report. You don’t manage anyone, and the fee rises and falls with your collections, so it’s lower in a slow month.

The trade-off: you have less day-to-day control, and the work happens outside your practice.

A dedicated biller works only on your account, inside your practice management system. You see the work as it happens, you set the priorities, and the knowledge of your payers stays in your practice.

The trade-off: someone at the practice has to manage them, and you pay for your own billing software and clearinghouse.

A simple way to decide:

• Choose a billing service if you collect under about $560,000 a year, or you don’t want to manage a person.
• Choose a dedicated biller if you collect more than that, or you want billing done inside your practice where you can see it.

Where the money leaks

Whichever model you choose, billing is where every earlier mistake shows up: a coverage check that was skipped, an authorization that was missing, a visit coded wrong. What matters is whether someone catches it and fixes it.

Denials are common. In a survey by Premier, nearly 15% of claims sent to private payers were denied the first time. Each one needs someone to find out why, correct it and send it back.

The leaks we see most often:

• Denials that never get appealed. Small ones especially get left behind.
• Unpaid claims after 60 or 90 days. Nobody calls the payer, and the claim ages past the filing limit.
• The same mistake every week. Nobody reports denial reasons back to the front desk, so the cause never gets fixed.
• No clear view of what’s owed. Without a regular report, you can’t tell where money is stuck.

Where Benchwell fits

Benchwell does both, so you can choose the model that suits you, or switch later as you grow.

Managed billing. We run your billing from claim to payment and report back every month. You pay a percentage of what we collect, so we only do well when you do. Before we quote, our billing team lead reviews a recent report of your claims and denials, free. You’ll see where money is stuck whether you work with us or not.

A dedicated billing coordinator. We find and test a full-time remote biller who works only on your account, for $2,800 a month. Every candidate is tested on real billing work, including fixing rejected claims and writing a denial appeal. You interview the strongest few and pick.

Either way:

• Charge entry and claims sent when they’re ready
• Payment posting so your books match what was paid
• Denials worked and appealed, with the reasons tracked and fixed at the source
• Unpaid claims chased until they’re paid or closed
• A regular report of claims, payments, denials and what’s still owed

Before anyone sees patient data, we sign a BAA, and everyone on your account completes HIPAA training and works on a company-managed laptop.

Not sure which one fits? Start with a free billing review. Send us a recent claims and denials report, and we’ll show you where money is stuck and which model makes sense for your practice.

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Sources: billing fee ranges from vendor pricing guides by Carepatron and OmniMD, so treat them as a guide. Denial rate: Premier survey, as reported by TechTarget. US salary: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national mean. Benefits and payroll taxes: salary divided by 0.7, from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation.