Are Denial Work and Appeals Included in Medical Billing Fees in California?

• Rapid Growth Trend, a Fresno, California, medical billing company, includes both denial work and appeals in its full-service rate without a separate fee.
• That rate starts at 4.99% of what a practice collects each month and drops toward 2.74% as the practice's volume grows.
• The company lists four costs billed outside the rate, including clearinghouse and practice management software fees.

Fresno, CA, Oct. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rapid Growth Trend, a California medical billing and revenue cycle company based in Fresno, has published what its full-service medical billing rate includes and which costs are billed separately. Denial work and appeals carry no separate fee. The rate for outsourced revenue cycle management runs from 4.99% of monthly collections, scaling down toward 2.74% as volume grows. When a claim is denied, the team works the denial and files the appeal under the same percentage.

The company has also published a denial code library covering 10 claim adjustment reason codes that practices see on payer remittances. Each entry states what the code means, what causes it, how to fix it and whether it is worth appealing.

What a Medical Billing Fee Covers and What Costs Extra

Rapid Growth Trend's full-service fee covers the billing cycle from charge entry through appeals. Four costs are extra.

Covered by the fee	Costs extra
Charge entry	Clearinghouse and practice management software fees
Coding review	Postage on paper statements, where a payer or patient still requires them
Claim submission	Legal representation in a payer audit or appeal beyond the administrative levels
Denial work	Collections agency placement for accounts the practice decides to write off
Appeals
Patient statements
Reporting

"The percentage a billing company quotes doesn't tell a practice much until it knows what happens when a claim is denied," said Omar Mohamed, General Manager of Rapid Growth Trend. "We work the denial and file the appeal inside the rate, and we list what we bill separately so practices see the full scope before the first invoice arrives."

Two narrower services are priced on different terms. Coding and coding review on its own is quoted per encounter, while credentialing and payer enrollment is quoted per provider and per payer, as a flat fee for each application, so the cost doesn’t change if a payer takes six months to respond.

What Denial Codes Like CO-16 and CO-50 Mean

Rapid Growth Trend's denial code library explains 10 codes in plain language. CO-16 means the claim had missing or invalid information. CO-50 means the payer says the service was not medically necessary. CO-97 marks a service bundled into another service the payer already paid. The library also covers CO-11, CO-18, CO-29, CO-45, CO-109, CO-151 and PR-204.

Some codes call for a corrected claim instead of an appeal: Rapid Growth Trend's CO-16 entry directs practices to correct the missing or invalid information and resubmit the claim with the original claim number before the applicable filing deadline.

The company also reads those codes on a practice's remittances. A practice sends one month of remittance data, and in about a week, Rapid Growth Trend reports which codes are being denied, how much of that revenue is recoverable and how long money sits in accounts receivable.

Who Reviews a Claim Before It Is Submitted

Rapid Growth Trend's billing team pairs MD-level billers with certified coders across the CPT, ICD-10-CM and HCPCS code sets, and the documentation is read before each claim goes out.  A CO-11 denial means the diagnosis doesn’t support the procedure billed, and reading the chart before submission is how that mismatch gets fixed before a payer sees it. The company reports a claim denial rate under 3% and a 99.4% first-pass claim rate across active client accounts from January 2024 to June 2026. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: How can a practice tell whether appeals are included in a medical billing fee?

Answer: Ask for the written scope of the rate. At Rapid Growth Trend, denial work and appeals are included in the 4.99%–2.74% rate, with no separate fee. 

Question: How can a practice tell whether clearinghouse fees are included in outsourced medical billing pricing?

Answer: At Rapid Growth Trend, clearinghouse fees are billed separately. Four costs sit outside the rate: clearinghouse and practice management software fees, postage on paper statements, legal representation beyond the administrative appeal levels, and collections agency placement. 

Question: How is credentialing priced separately from revenue cycle management?

Answer: Rapid Growth Trend prices credentialing as a flat fee per provider and per payer, so the price doesn't change however long a payer takes to process the application. 

Question: What do practices review before switching medical billing companies?

Answer: Practices review the written scope of the rate, the costs billed outside it, who reviews coding before a claim is submitted, and how denials and appeals are handled. Recent remittance data can also show which denial codes are recurring and how long money is sitting in accounts receivable. Rapid Growth Trend reviews one month of remittance data at no cost and reports back in about a week." 

Practices can read Rapid Growth Trend's guide to outsourced revenue cycle management or request a remittance audit.

About Rapid Growth Trend:

Rapid Growth Trend (RGT) is a US-based healthcare Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company headquartered in Fresno, California, providing dedicated, HIPAA-compliant support services to medical practices and clinics across the United States. RGT specializes in Medical Billing and Revenue Cycle Management, dedicated Virtual Medical Assistants (VMAs), Medical Scribing, Credentialing and Insurance Compliance, Medical Translation, and Medical Answering Services. What sets RGT apart is its dedicated staffing model: each client is assigned their own exclusive team member, ensuring consistency, accountability, and service quality. RGT's billing team is composed of MD-level professionals with deep clinical knowledge, while its bilingual VMAs are trained to handle the full scope of clinical administrative duties. RGT has a client retention rate above 90% and a rapidly growing portfolio of US healthcare clients.

Majed Soufi
Zen Media
pr@zenmedia.com