The Denial Index · Issue 001
What a Denied Claim Actually Tells You
The Denial Index reads real denied medical and dental claims and reports what the claims themselves show: the reasons claims are denied most, the share overturned on appeal, and the dollars recovered. De-identified, method shown, no surveys, no estimates.
In preparation
This issue is being built from a real batch of denied claims. Most numbers you read about insurance denials come from surveys or press releases. This one comes from the claims themselves. When the batch is complete, this page publishes the codes denied most often, the share overturned on appeal, and the dollar ranges recovered, with the method shown below. No estimates, no invented figures.
Most of what you have read about insurance denials came from a survey or a press release. Someone asked people how often they get denied, or a company announced a number that made a point. That is not the same as reading the claims.
This is the other thing. Each issue of The Denial Index is built from real denied claims, read one at a time, coded by why they were denied and what happened when they were appealed. The point is not a headline number. The point is the pattern you can only see from inside the paperwork: which reasons repeat, which denials reverse the moment someone pushes back, and how much money was sitting in claims that people assumed were closed.
Issue 001 is the first batch. The table above fills in as the claims are read. The method is below, and it does not change: de-identified, coded, ranges not false precision, and nothing published that would require a guess.
If you are holding a denied claim, that claim is part of the story. Send it in, blank the patient name, and it becomes part of how the next issue is built.
Methodology
Every figure here comes from direct review of real denied medical and dental insurance claims. Patient identifiers are removed before a claim enters the dataset. Each claim is coded by denial reason and, where an appeal was filed, by outcome. Dollar figures are reported as ranges, never tied to an individual. Where a number would require an estimate or extrapolation, it is left out rather than guessed. The dataset grows each issue.
Questions
Where does the data in The Denial Index come from?
It comes from direct review of real denied medical and dental insurance claims, not from surveys or press releases. Patient identifiers are removed before a claim enters the dataset. Each claim is coded by denial reason and, where an appeal was filed, by outcome.
How is patient privacy protected?
Patient identifiers are removed before any claim enters the dataset. Dollar figures are reported as ranges, never tied to an individual. Nothing that could identify a patient is published.
Why report ranges instead of exact numbers?
Because the honest figure for a batch of real claims is a range, and a single precise number would imply a certainty the data does not have. Where a figure would require an estimate or extrapolation, it is left out rather than guessed.
Add to the next issue
If you are sitting on a denied claim, send it in. Blank the patient name. It gets read, and de-identified it becomes part of how the next issue is built.
Send me a denied claim