Negotiate Better Payer Contracts — And Actually Get Paid What You're Worth

Most independent practices accept the rates payers offer without negotiation. When a payer sends a contract, the practice signs it — often without comparing the offered rates to market benchmarks, reviewing the fee schedule in detail, or understanding the financial terms buried in the agreement. Over a three-to-five year contract term, the difference between negotiated rates and default rates can amount to tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue per provider per year. For a three-provider practice, that's potentially $100,000 to $200,000 in revenue left on the table over the life of a single contract — money that was earned through patient care but never collected because the rates weren't right.

HHS brings three things to payer negotiations that individual practices cannot access on their own: market data, volume leverage, and established relationships. We maintain rate benchmarking data across specialties, geographies, and payers that tells us exactly where your rates fall relative to the market. We leverage aggregate volume across the HHS network to negotiate from a position of strength — payers respond differently when the negotiation represents multiple providers and locations rather than a single practice. And our contracting team has existing relationships with payer contracting departments built over years of negotiations, which means we know who to call, what they respond to, and how to structure a proposal that gets movement.

Payer contract management is not a one-time event — it's an ongoing function. Fee schedules change, payers update their policies, and market rates shift over time. A contract that was competitive when signed three years ago may be significantly below market today. HHS monitors your contracted rates annually, compares them against current benchmarks, and triggers renegotiations when rates drift below market thresholds. We also track contract renewal dates and auto-renewal provisions to ensure you never miss a renegotiation window. The practices that consistently earn the highest reimbursement are the ones that treat payer contracting as an active, managed function — not a document they signed once and filed away.