Medical billing industry statistics for 2026, from claim denials to prior authorization
For billing and revenue-cycle managers, and the writers who quote them. Every figure is numbered, dated and linked to the group that measured it. Popular numbers that don't hold up are flagged.
Key takeaways
- Claim attachments, the records sent with a claim, are the least automated claims task. Health plans receive 98% of claims electronically, but only 24% of attachments and 40% of prior authorizations (CAQH, 2026).
- A manual transaction costs a medical provider $8.03, against $2.65 for an electronic one. CAQH puts the remaining savings for the medical industry at $18.7 billion a year.
- Denial rates depend on who counts them and how. HealthCare.gov insurers denied 19% of in-network claims in 2024, counting only claims still denied after any resubmission (KFF). Providers on Kodiak's platform had an initial denial rate of 10.63% in the first half of 2026.
- Practices complete 40 prior authorizations per physician each week, which take 13 hours of physician and staff time. 40% of physicians have staff who work only on them (AMA, 2026).
- Medicare's fee-for-service program made $28.83 billion in improper payments in fiscal 2025. Insufficient documentation caused 53.0% of those payments. In those cases, the records didn't show whether the payment was proper (CMS).
On this page
- How big is the medical billing industry?
- Which billing tasks are still manual?
- Claim denial statistics
- Prior authorization statistics
- Documentation errors and improper payments
- Administrative costs and waste
- Billing jobs, staffing and AI
- Popular medical billing statistics, checked
- How we picked and checked these figures
- If paper EOBs still reach your posting team
- Frequently asked questions
The latest medical billing industry statistics show most claims work is electronic, but some steps still run by hand. Health plans receive 98% of claims electronically. Only 24% of claim attachments and 40% of prior authorizations arrive the same way. Denials add more work. HealthCare.gov insurers denied 19% of in-network claims in 2024.
We grouped the figures by the question they answer. Each one is numbered, so you can link to a single statistic. We opened every source on September 29, 2026. We also name the sponsor of each vendor survey.
The two lowest shares are for tasks that carry documents. Attachments are the records sent with a claim. Prior authorization requests carry forms and clinical notes.
How big is the medical billing industry?#
No single number measures the billing industry. Start with the money and the claim volume that billing teams handle.
1. US health spending grew 7.2% to $5.3 trillion in 2024. That is $15,474 per person and 18.0% of GDP (CMS, 2026).
2. Spending on physician and clinical services grew 8.1% to $1,109.7 billion in 2024. Hospital spending grew 8.9% to $1,634.7 billion (CMS, 2026).
3. CMS expects health spending to grow 5.4% a year on average through 2034. That would raise its share of GDP to 20.6% (CMS, 2026).
4. Medicare's claims contractors processed more than 1.1 billion fee-for-service claims in fiscal 2024. About 193 million were Part A claims and 927 million were Part B claims (CMS, 2026).
5. The US medical industry handled an estimated 68.8 billion administrative transactions in 2024, 10% more than a year earlier. They include eligibility checks, claims and payment notices (CAQH, 2026).
6. The medical industry spent an estimated $75.3 billion on those transactions in 2024, 9% less than the year before (CAQH, 2026).
7. Market estimates depend on what they count. Precedence Research puts US medical billing outsourcing at $6.64 billion in 2025 and $20.39 billion by 2035 (Precedence Research, 2026). MarketsandMarkets counts software and services worldwide and puts the medical billing market at $16.8 billion in 2024 (MarketsandMarkets, 2024).
Which billing tasks are still manual?#
The CAQH Index asks health plans and providers each year how they handle routine claims tasks. It counts phone, mail, fax and email as manual, and payer portals as partly electronic. The 2025 edition came out in February 2026 and covers 2024.
8. Health plans receive 98% of claims electronically but only 24% of claim attachments. The attachment share fell from 32% a year earlier (CAQH, 2026). Our guide to health insurance claim form data extraction covers the paper claims that remain.
9. Only 40% of prior authorizations are fully electronic, up from 35% a year earlier and 31% two years earlier (CAQH, 2026).
10. Remittance advice tells a provider what a plan paid on each claim. Its electronic share slipped to 87% from 89%. Attachments and remittance advice were the only medical tasks whose electronic share fell (CAQH, 2026).
11. A manual transaction costs a medical provider $8.03 on average, against $2.65 for an electronic one. CAQH counts staff time only, not software (CAQH, 2026).
12. Moving the remaining manual and portal work to fully electronic could save the medical industry an estimated $18.7 billion a year (CAQH, 2026).
13. By using electronic transactions, US healthcare avoided an estimated $258 billion in administrative costs in 2024. That was 17% more than a year earlier (CAQH, 2026).
14. In 2023, a manual prior authorization took a provider 24 minutes and cost $12.88. An electronic one took 10 minutes and cost $5.38 (CAQH, 2025).
15. A claim status check by phone took 25 minutes in 2023, the longest of any task CAQH measured. An electronic check took 7 minutes (CAQH, 2025).
The 2024 CAQH Index priced each task by the way it was done. Costs cover staff time only.
| Task (2023 data) | Manual cost | Electronic cost | Minutes, manual vs electronic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prior authorization | $12.88 | $5.38 | 24 vs 10 |
| Claim status inquiry | $13.80 | $3.64 | 25 vs 7 |
| Eligibility and benefit check | $8.57 | $2.00 | 16 vs 4 |
| Claim submission | $6.33 | $3.05 | 12 vs 5 |
| Remittance advice | $5.67 | $2.95 | 9 vs 5 |
| Claim attachment | $5.54 | $4.51 | 11 vs 7 |
| Claim payment | $4.99 | $3.16 | 8 vs 5 |
Source: 2024 CAQH Index, medical providers, average cost and minutes per transaction, 2023 data.
16. Most medical plans (63%) are still building the software connections (APIs) for electronic prior authorization that federal rules require by January 2027. Only 20% of providers have started setting up electronic prior authorization (CAQH, 2026).
17. In an MGMA Stat poll with 252 responses, 61% of practices said their staff use seven or more payer portals a week. 26% use 11 or more (MGMA, 2026).
18. MGMA asked practice leaders which phone task takes their staff the most time. 45% named eligibility checks and prior authorization. Insight Health AI sponsored the poll (MGMA, 2026).
To see what manual work costs your team, count the paper EOBs, faxed records and attachment requests you handle each month. An EOB (explanation of benefits) shows what a health plan paid on each claim. For the minutes per document, CAQH's 9 minutes for a manual remittance advice and 11 minutes for a manual attachment are fair first guesses.
Hours and budget automation frees up
What automating document data entry saves your team, and the most the software can cost before it stops paying for itself.
- Hours per month today
- Hours per month with automation
- Labor saved per month: your break-even software budget
- Labor saved per year
How it's worked out
- Hours today are documents times minutes by hand. With automation, only the documents that don't go straight through take a person's time, at the review minutes you set.
- Labor saved is the hours saved times the hourly cost. Software that costs less than that a month pays for itself on labor alone.
- It leaves out setup time and the value of faster turnaround.
Our take. The low electronic shares for attachments and prior authorization suggest a small first project. Pick the one type of paper document that delays payment and arrives every week, and automate it first. Paper EOBs for payment posting are one example, and the records a payer asks for are another. Count the minutes you save on that document type before you add prior authorization packets or denial letters.
Claim denial statistics#
Denial rates differ by payer, by care setting and by who counts them. Several of the data sets below count denials at first submission. KFF counts only claims still denied at the end, after any resubmission. Some count claims and others count dollars, and some cover only hospitals. When you quote a rate, say which group it covers and which year.
19. HealthCare.gov insurers denied 19% of in-network claims in 2024 and 37% of out-of-network claims. KFF counts only claims still denied after any resubmission (KFF, 2026).
20. In-network denial rates ranged from 3% to 36% by insurer. Among large parent companies, they ran from 8% at Elevance Health to 25% at Oscar Health (KFF, 2026).
21. Insurers gave "other" as the reason for 36% of in-network denials and administrative reasons for 25%. Only 9% were for a missing prior authorization or referral, and 5% for medical necessity (KFF, 2026).
22. Consumers appealed fewer than 1% of denied in-network claims. Insurers upheld 66% of the denials that were appealed (KFF, 2026).
23. A study of 2019 claims from more than 150 health plans counted denials at first submission, weighted by standard Medicare prices. Medicaid managed care plans denied 15.1% of professional claims, which are bills for the services of physicians and other clinicians. Medicare Advantage plans denied 10.5%, and commercial plans 7.8% (Health Affairs Scholar, 2026).
24. In the same study, Medicare Advantage plans denied 20.0% of inpatient claims at first. That was the highest rate of any payer type (Health Affairs Scholar, 2026).
25. A separate study found Medicare Advantage plans denied 17% of initial claims in 2019. 57% of those denials were later overturned. The denials that were not overturned cut providers' revenue from these plans by 7% (Health Affairs, 2025).
26. The initial claim denial rate for providers on Kodiak's platform fell to 10.63% in the first half of 2026, from 12.00% a year earlier. Final denial write-offs fell to 3.07% of net revenue. The data covers 2,400 hospitals and 375,000 physicians (Kodiak Solutions, 2026).
27. At providers on Kodiak's platform, the initial denial rate for Medicare Advantage plans was 10.1% in 2025, against 4.2% for traditional Medicare. Their final denial rates were 5.0% and 1.9% (Kodiak Solutions, 2026).
28. At the same providers, 26.1% of Medicare Advantage accounts receivable was more than 90 days old in 2025. For traditional Medicare it was 12.2% (Kodiak Solutions, 2026).
29. Hospitals' average claim denial rate was 12% in 2023, up from 10% in 2020 and 9% in 2016. Optum analyzed about 124 million claim payment records from more than 1,400 hospitals (Optum, 2024).
30. Registration and eligibility problems caused 24.33% of hospital denials in 2023. Missing or invalid claim data caused 15.89% (Optum, 2024).
31. Authorization problems caused 12.80% of denials, and requests for medical documentation caused 12.08% (Optum, 2024).
32. Optum rates 84% of denials as potentially avoidable, though 22% of those can't be recovered. 44% were front-end denials, tied to steps such as registration and eligibility checks (Optum, 2024).
33. Hospitals in a Premier survey saw nearly 15% of claims denied at first in 2023. Some saw rates as high as 49%. The survey covered 280 hospitals in 23 states (Premier, 2025).
34. Fighting a denial cost $57.23 per claim in 2023, up from $43.84 in 2022. Premier puts the national total at more than $25.7 billion (Premier, 2025).
35. About 70% of denied claims were eventually overturned and paid (Premier, 2025).
36. A denied claim went through three rounds of review on average, and each round took 45 to 60 days (Premier, 2025).
37. 41% of providers say 10% or more of their claims are denied, a share that has grown each year since 2022. Experian Health surveyed 250 people who make billing and claims decisions (Experian Health, 2025).
38. Missing or inaccurate claim data is the top cause of denials, named by 50% of providers, up from 46%. Authorizations come next, at 35% (Experian Health, 2025).
39. About 90% of respondents in Experian Health's survey said their denials get at least some human review before they are sent again. Only 10% fix and resubmit denials with a fully automated process (Experian Health, 2025).
40. Hospitals spent an estimated $43 billion in 2025 trying to collect payments that insurers owe for care they had already delivered (AHA, 2026).
41. Under the No Surprises Act, providers and health plans can ask a federal dispute process to decide the payment for an out-of-network service. Providers and plans started 1,372,563 disputes in the second half of 2025, 16% more than in the first half. Providers won about 85% of the payment decisions (CMS, 2026).
Prior authorization statistics#
Prior authorization means a health plan must approve a service before it will pay for it. Each request comes with forms and clinical notes, and each denial arrives as a letter that someone has to handle.
42. Practices complete an average of 40 prior authorizations per physician each week. The work takes 13 hours of physician and staff time. The AMA surveyed 1,000 physicians in December 2025 (AMA, 2026).
43. 40% of physicians have staff who work only on prior authorization (AMA, 2026).
44. 32% of physicians say their requests are often or always denied. 74% say denials have risen over the past five years (AMA, 2026).
45. 95% of physicians say prior authorization delays access to care (AMA, 2026).
46. About 60 health insurers pledged in June 2025 to simplify prior authorization. Only 33% of physicians believe the pledge will make a meaningful difference (AMA, 2026).
47. Medicare Advantage insurers decided 52.8 million prior authorization requests in 2024, or 1.7 per enrollee (KFF, 2026).
48. They fully or partly denied 4.1 million requests (7.7%). Only 11.5% of those denials were appealed, and 80.7% of appeals overturned the denial in full or in part (KFF, 2026).
49. Denial rates ranged from 4.2% at Elevance Health to 12.8% at UnitedHealth Group (KFF, 2026).
50. Under a CMS rule, insurers first posted their own prior authorization figures by March 31, 2026. KFF collected the figures from the largest insurers. For standard requests in 2025, Medicare Advantage insurers denied 12%, Medicaid managed care insurers 14% and Marketplace insurers 18% (KFF, 2026).
51. When those denials were appealed, 67% were overturned in Medicare Advantage, 47% in Medicaid managed care and 43% in the Marketplace. The median decision on a standard request took about one day (KFF, 2026).
52. Since January 1, 2026, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and CHIP plans must decide urgent requests within 72 hours. Standard requests must be decided within seven calendar days (CMS, 2024). CMS estimates the rule will save about $15 billion over ten years (CMS, 2024).
53. 44% of medical group leaders say prior authorization turnaround got slower in 2026 than in 2025. Only 7% say it got faster (MGMA, 2026).
54. In MGMA's 2026 survey of more than 230 group practices, 90% report a heavier prior authorization burden than 12 months earlier (MGMA, 2026).
55. Payers required prior authorization on more than 20% of claims in 2023, up from 17% in 2022. For Medicare Advantage claims the share was 30.5% (Premier, 2025).
56. 10.4% of denied claims had already been approved through prior authorization, up from 3.2% in 2022 (Premier, 2025).
Documentation errors and improper payments#
A Medicare payment counts as improper when the claim doesn't meet program rules. CMS notes that improper payments are not a measure of fraud. Most of them trace back to the paperwork behind the claim.
57. Medicare's fee-for-service improper payment rate was 6.55% in fiscal 2025, or $28.83 billion. A year earlier it was 7.66%, or $31.70 billion (CMS, 2026).
58. Insufficient documentation caused 53.0% of those improper payments, and missing documentation another 12.0%. Medical necessity caused 15.3% and incorrect coding 11.1% (CMS, 2026).
The records behind those claims often arrive as scans and faxes. Our guide to OCR for medical records explains how they are read.
Administrative costs and waste#
59. Waste costs US health care an estimated $760 billion to $935 billion a year, about 25% of spending. Administrative complexity is the largest share, at $265.6 billion (JAMA, 2019).
60. Administrative spending makes up 15% to 30% of US health spending, depending on the definition. At least half of it is waste, or $285 billion to $570 billion in 2019 (Health Affairs, 2022).
61. About 30 known changes could save up to $265 billion a year, or 28% of administrative spending, McKinsey estimates (McKinsey, 2021).
62. Billing and insurance work cost $20.49 and 13 minutes for a primary care visit at one academic health system. For an inpatient surgery it cost $215.10 and 100 minutes (JAMA, 2018).
63. The average hospital employed about 64 administrative and billing staff in 2024, roughly 6.5% of its workforce (AHA, 2026).
64. In the same MGMA survey, 40% of practices have three or more full-time administrative staff per physician. They handle work such as prior authorization, denials and quality reporting (MGMA, 2026).
Billing jobs, staffing and AI#
65. Jobs for medical records specialists are projected to grow 8% from 2025 to 2035, much faster than average. BLS also projects about 14,000 openings a year. The median wage was $51,140 in May 2025 (BLS, 2026).
66. Billing and posting clerks held 418,000 jobs in 2025, and BLS projects almost no change by 2035. It expects demand to rise in healthcare, while invoice processing software lets each clerk handle more (BLS, 2026).
67. 28% of medical group leaders saw higher staff turnover in 2026 than in 2025 (MGMA, 2026).
68. More than half of health plans and a quarter of providers now use AI. Providers use it mostly for administrative tasks such as eligibility checks (CAQH, 2026).
69. 80% of health systems are exploring, piloting or using generative AI for revenue cycle work, and 20% have not started. AKASA commissioned the survey of 519 finance and revenue cycle leaders through HFMA (AKASA and HFMA, 2025).
70. Only 14% of providers in Experian Health's survey use AI to reduce denials. Of those, 69% say it cut denials or made resubmissions succeed more often (Experian Health, 2025).
Popular medical billing statistics, checked#
Many figures in medical billing round-ups are old or come from a single estimate. We traced the most common ones back to where they started.
| Often quoted | What the source says | Cite instead |
|---|---|---|
| 80% of medical bills contain errors | A 2007 Associated Press story quoted one billing advocate. She estimated that 8 of every 10 hospital bills she reviewed had errors. We found no study behind it | Medicare's 6.55% improper payment rate, mostly from insufficient or missing documentation (CMS, fiscal 2025) |
| 90% of claim denials are preventable | A 2014 Advisory Board blog post, with no data or method | 84% of hospital denials potentially avoidable (Optum, 2023 data) |
| 65% of denied claims are never resubmitted | A 2014 MGMA article said 50% to 65% of denials are never worked, citing unnamed industry sources | About 70% of denied claims eventually overturned and paid (Premier, 2023 data) |
| Reworking a denied claim costs $25, or $118 at hospitals | The $25 appears in a 2014 MGMA article with no study cited. The $118 comes from Change Healthcare's 2017 index of 2016 hospital claims | $57.23 per claim to fight a denial (Premier, 2023 data) |
| Insurers deny $262 billion of claims a year | Change Healthcare's 2017 estimate of 2016 hospital charges that were initially denied, 9% of charges. It was projected from 724 hospitals to all US hospitals, and Change Healthcare said 63% of those claims were recoverable | 10.63% initial denial rate (Kodiak Solutions, first half of 2026) |
| Physicians spend 16 hours a week on prior authorization | The AMA's survey published in January 2017 found 37 requests and 16.4 hours a week, counting physician and staff time together. Later surveys found fewer hours | 40 requests per physician and 13 hours a week of physician and staff time (AMA, survey fielded December 2025) |
| 30% of US health spending is administrative | Woolhandler, Campbell and Himmelstein put administration at 31% of US health spending in 1999, leaving out retail pharmacy (NEJM, 2003). Their 2017 update (34.2%) leaves out about $1.1 trillion of spending, such as dental care and public health | 15% to 30%, depending on what counts as administration (Health Affairs, 2022) |
| UnitedHealthcare denies 32% of claims | A ValuePenguin analysis of in-network claims in HealthCare.gov Marketplace plans only. It leaves out employer, Medicare and Medicaid plans | 8% to 25% in-network denial rates across large Marketplace insurers (KFF, 2024 data) |
How we picked and checked these figures#
Every figure links to the organization that ran the survey or analysis. We opened each page or report on September 29, 2026, to confirm the number and its wording. When a publisher's page wouldn't load for us, we read an archived copy or the PubMed abstract and kept the publisher's own link.
Watch the data year when you quote a figure. The 2025 CAQH Index covers 2024, and the Health Affairs Scholar study published in 2026 uses claims from 2019. Several sources sell products or services to providers, including Experian Health, Optum, Kodiak Solutions, Premier and AKASA. Their figures come from their own client data or surveys. Samples range from 250 survey respondents to data from 2,400 hospitals. Some count claims and others count dollars, so compare denial rates within one source rather than across sources.
If paper EOBs still reach your posting team#
Count the paper and faxed documents your team handles in a month, and sort them by type. Common types include EOBs, attachment requests, prior authorization forms and denial letters. The type that arrives most often is a good place to start.
Docsumo reads and checks claim forms, EOBs and medical records, then sends the data to your billing, practice management or EHR system. It turns paper EOBs into 835 files, the national standard format for electronic remittance advice. It isn't a billing service or a clearinghouse, so claims still go out through your billing system. Docsumo is HIPAA compliant and signs a business associate agreement (BAA) with customers who process protected health information (security). To compare tools, see the best healthcare data extraction software.
Book a demo with a few of your own EOBs, or start a free trial.
Frequently asked questions#
How big is the medical billing industry?
It depends on what you count. US health spending reached $5.3 trillion in 2024, and Medicare processed more than 1.1 billion fee-for-service claims in fiscal 2024. Precedence Research puts US medical billing outsourcing at $6.64 billion in 2025, growing to $20.39 billion by 2035.
What is the average claim denial rate?
Most recent measures put it between about 10% and 20%, depending on the payer and on which group collects the data. HealthCare.gov insurers denied 19% of in-network claims in 2024, counting only claims still denied after any resubmission (KFF). Providers on Kodiak's platform had an initial denial rate of 10.63% in the first half of 2026. Optum measured 12% for hospital claims in 2023.
Why do health insurance claims get denied?
Most denials trace back to data and paperwork, not medical judgment. In Experian Health's 2025 survey, providers named missing or inaccurate claim data (50%), authorizations (35%) and registration data (32%) as top causes. KFF found that only 5% of in-network Marketplace denials in 2024 were for medical necessity.
What percentage of prior authorizations are approved?
Most of them. More than 90% of Medicare Advantage prior authorization requests were fully approved in 2024, and 7.7% were fully or partly denied (KFF). Insurers now post their own figures too. For standard requests in 2025, they denied 12% in Medicare Advantage, 14% in Medicaid managed care and 18% in Marketplace plans.
Will AI replace medical billers?
Not soon, based on federal job projections. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expects jobs for medical records specialists to grow 8% from 2025 to 2035. It expects jobs for billing and posting clerks to stay at about 418,000. In Experian Health's 2025 survey, about 90% of respondents said their denials still get at least some human review.
Sources
- CMS, National Health Expenditure fact sheet (2024 data; projections 2025–2034)
- CMS, What's a MAC (Medicare fee-for-service claims, fiscal 2024)
- CAQH, 2025 CAQH Index executive report (Feb 2026, 2024 data)
- CAQH, 2025 CAQH Index methodology (Feb 2026)
- CAQH, 2025 CAQH Index press release (Feb 19, 2026)
- CAQH, 2024 CAQH Index report (Feb 2025, 2023 time and cost data)
- Precedence Research, U.S. medical billing outsourcing market (Feb 19, 2026)
- MarketsandMarkets, Medical billing market worth $27.7 billion by 2029 (Jul 2024)
- MGMA Stat, How many payer portals is too many? (Mar 31, 2026 poll)
- MGMA Stat, Phones are still a bottleneck costing medical practices time they can't afford (Mar 10, 2026 poll, sponsored by Insight Health AI)
- KFF, Claims denials and appeals in ACA Marketplace plans in 2024 (Mar 24, 2026)
- Weinreb and Landon, Variation in medical claim denials, Health Affairs Scholar (Aug 2026, 2019 data)
- Vabson, Hicks and Chernew, Medicare Advantage denies 17 percent of initial claims, Health Affairs (Jun 2025)
- Kodiak Solutions, Unyielding denials, revenue cycle benchmarking report (Sep 2026)
- Kodiak Solutions, State of the healthcare revenue cycle, benchmarking report (Mar 2026)
- Optum, 2024 Revenue Cycle Denials Index (Nov 2024, 2023 data)
- Premier, Claims adjudication costs providers $25.7 billion (Feb 24, 2025)
- Experian Health, 2025 State of Claims report (survey of 250 healthcare professionals responsible for financial, billing or claims decisions)
- Experian Health, State of Claims survey press release (Sep 22, 2025)
- American Hospital Association, Costs of Caring (Mar 2026)
- CMS, Federal IDR supplemental background, July to December 2025 (Jul 2026)
- AMA, 2025 prior authorization physician survey (published May 2026)
- AMA, Prior authorization reform pledge falls short with physicians (May 13, 2026)
- KFF, Medicare Advantage insurers made nearly 53 million prior authorization determinations in 2024 (Jan 28, 2026)
- KFF, Prior authorization metrics provide new insights into insurer practices, but gaps remain (Aug 13, 2026)
- CMS, Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule (CMS-0057-F) fact sheet (Jan 17, 2024)
- CMS, press release on the prior authorization final rule (Jan 17, 2024)
- MGMA Stat, Fewer than 1 in 10 practices see faster prior auth turnarounds in 2026 (Sep 1, 2026 poll)
- MGMA, 2026 Regulatory Burden Report (Apr 9, 2026)
- CMS, Fiscal year 2025 improper payments fact sheet (Jan 15, 2026)
- CMS, 2025 Medicare fee-for-service supplemental improper payment data (CERT)
- Shrank, Rogstad and Parekh, Waste in the US health care system, JAMA (Oct 2019)
- Health Affairs research brief, The role of administrative waste in excess US health spending (Oct 6, 2022)
- McKinsey, Administrative simplification, how to save a quarter-trillion dollars in US healthcare (Oct 20, 2021)
- Tseng et al., Administrative costs associated with physician billing and insurance-related activities, JAMA (Feb 2018)
- Woolhandler, Campbell and Himmelstein, Costs of health care administration in the United States and Canada, NEJM (Aug 2003)
- Himmelstein, Campbell and Woolhandler, Health care administrative costs in the United States and Canada, 2017, Annals of Internal Medicine (Jan 2020)
- CMS, Health care payment and remittance advice (X12 835 standard)
- BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Medical records specialists (2025–35 projections)
- BLS, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Financial clerks (2025–35 projections)
- MGMA Stat, Stabilized but not solved, staff turnover in medical practices looking no better, no worse in 2026 (May 26, 2026 poll)
- AKASA and HFMA, Health systems see promise in generative AI for documentation and revenue cycle accuracy (Dec 17, 2025)
- Associated Press via NBC News, Medical-bill errors becoming more common (Oct 29, 2007)
- Advisory Board, An ounce of prevention pays off, 90% of denials are preventable (Dec 2014, archived)
- MGMA, You might be losing thousands of dollars per month in unclean claims (Feb 1, 2014, archived)
- Change Healthcare, $262 billion in healthcare claims initially denied in 2016 (2017, archived)
- HIT Consultant, Change Healthcare, $262B in healthcare claims initially denied in 2016 (Jun 27, 2017)
- AMA, Survey quantifies time burdens of prior authorization (Jan 30, 2017)
- ValuePenguin, Health insurance claim denials and appeals (2024, archived)
First published .