IDR arbitration help: get No Surprises Act disputes filed and won

Who can file for you, what it costs, and what good help looks like.

If your group is sitting on underpaid out-of-network claims, the No Surprises Act gives you a federal arbitration process that providers win 85.8 percent of the time. The catch is operational: business day deadlines on every claim, batching rules, and evidence packets. This site covers how to get that work done, in-house or hired out, and what each option costs. It is run by Lido IDR, which files IDR arbitration cases for a flat fee per arbitration.

All 3.39 million federal IDR disputes published by CMS, 2023 through 2025. Explore the data at idrexplorer.com.

Your four options for IDR arbitration help

Do it in-house

The federal portal is open to providers, and a small book of claims can absolutely be run by your own billing team. The failure mode is volume: the 30 business day negotiation window and the 4 business day filing window apply to every claim separately, and most in-house efforts quietly stop filing within a few months. What DIY really takes, and when it makes sense, is in our DIY guide.

Hire a law firm

Healthcare law firms file IDR well, and if a payer ever ignores a binding award you will want one. But federal IDR has no hearing and no courtroom: it is an administrative filing decided on paper. Paying litigation-style contingency, usually 15 to 25 percent of the recovery, for an administrative process is the most expensive way to get it done.

Use a billing company or IDR vendor

Many revenue cycle companies added IDR as a service line, also typically priced as a percentage of the recovery. Quality varies more than price does. The published record shows some filers winning far above the 85.8 percent average and some far below it, and the difference is usually deadlines and packet quality, not the claims themselves.

Use a flat fee filing service

Same work as the vendor, priced the way the work scales: a flat fee per arbitration, regardless of the award size. On the typical published award, about 4.7 times the qualifying payment amount, the difference between a flat fee and a 15 to 25 percent cut is routinely thousands of dollars per dispute. This is the arrangement Lido IDR offers, with every decision in the federal record behind its filings. The full cost comparison is in what IDR arbitration help costs.

What good help looks like

Whoever files for you, hold them to this list:

• Every deadline tracked per claim. 30 business days to notice, 30 to negotiate, 4 to file, 10 to submit the offer. One spreadsheet lapse costs the whole claim.
• Claim selection before filing. Eligible claims, filed on time, argued with evidence, win 85.8 percent of the time. Ineligible or stale claims lose and cost fees.
• Batching by payer and window. Same payer, same or similar services, 30 business day window, one dispute, one set of fees. This is what makes small claims worth arbitrating.
• Evidence on the statutory factors. Training and experience, patient acuity and case complexity, scope of services, prior contracting history. Offers supported by evidence beat database medians.
• You approve every offer and see every status. Awards are paid to your group directly, not routed through the filer.
• Pricing that does not tax the win. The federal administrative fee is $15 per party per dispute and the arbitrator's deposit comes back when you win. The filer's percentage is the only cost that grows with the award.

Built on all 3.39 million federal IDR decisions

IDR Arbitration Help is run by Lido IDR, which published the entire federal IDR record at idrexplorer.com: every dispute, every payer, every IDR entity, and award benchmarks for more than 800 specialty and state combinations. That data powers the filings, from picking winnable claims to setting offer amounts. Surgical groups can see their specialty's record at idrforsurgeons.com.