12/07/2025
$𝟰𝟴𝟳,𝟬𝟬𝟬.
That's what we found sitting in an orthopedic practice's "pending" queue last month.
Not denied. Not rejected.
Just sitting there. For 11 months.
Look, here's what happened, their clearinghouse was flagging claims for missing information, but nobody was checking the flags.
The claims never actually got submitted to the payer.
Knee replacements. Hip revisions. Spinal fusions.
Some of the highest-dollar procedures they do.
The practice administrator thought everything was fine because the clearinghouse wasn't showing errors.
The billers thought everything was fine because nothing came back denied.
Meanwhile, the payers never even saw the claims.
We resubmitted everything that was still within timely filing.
Recovered $𝟯𝟰𝟬𝗞 𝗶𝗻 𝟲 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝘀.
The other $147K?
𝗧𝗼𝗼 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲. 𝗚𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿.
To be honest, this is the part that kills me about orthopedic billing, the dollars are big enough that one process gap can cost you a surgeon's salary.
Before celebrating your clean claim rate, you might want to ask: are you actually checking your clearinghouse pending queue weekly?
Because if you're not, you could be leaving half a million dollars on the table and not even know it.
Suggestions…
That’s a lot of money! Revenue should check it every week and need to check what is issues with it… It might be Enrollment issues that is why they are not touching it… it is still in process or there’s other issues like referrals, taxonomy code, npi, etc… the status needs to be to In progress hold claims, In progress send claims as not participating, Not Billing, Not Participating or Participating to avoid an issue. Also, you have to create portal access for some payers and complete EFT/ERA. I recommend PaySpan, OptumPay, & Availity for tracking payments.