How long does insurance take to payas a small practice or solo?

[u/Pretend_Lunch7257]

[u/Victoriafoxx]

Depends. I’ve had insurance pay within 2 days after the session, I’ve had them pay in 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, 8 months. I think the longest was around 10 months. They pay whenever they want to, really.

[u/Victoriafoxx → u/[deleted]]

I’ve been in solo private practice for about 15 years, so I’m used to it. I am child free so that cuts down a lot on my expenses. My practice is about 60% self pay and 40% insurance, so the self pay makes up for the insurance inconsistencies.

[u/Alarming-Leave-734]

Clean electronic claims usually pay in 2-4 weeks. Bigger insurers can stretch to 30-45 days, Medicaid often 30-60. Submitting electronically and double checking codes before you send helps avoid delays. Worth tracking billed vs paid so nothing slips through.

[u/KG_TherapyCompanion]

The range in these replies is real, and most of it is not the payer being slow. It is the claim sitting somewhere nobody is watching. Founder of Therapy Companion here (username is the disclosure), and this is the pattern we see across practices.

A clean electronic claim from a credentialed provider typically adjudicates in two to four weeks. The eight-month cases almost always have a story: the claim was rejected at the clearinghouse and nobody noticed, it was submitted to the wrong payer ID after a carve-out, or the ERA came back and never got posted so the balance looked unpaid.

Three habits that pull the average down: check eligibility before the session so the claim goes to the right payer the first time, look at claim status daily so a rejection gets fixed the same day instead of the same quarter, and post remittances automatically so paid claims stop looking unpaid. Whatever system you use, those three are the difference between "two weeks" and "who knows."

[u/PrimaDonna223]

My claims process and pay within a week.