Last updated: September 29, 2026
Two people land on this page for opposite reasons. A biller wants to know what the work pays. On the other side of the same table, a practice owner wants to know what that pay says about the quote sitting on the desk. Both answers come out of the same arithmetic, so every heading below names which side it's serving.
At a glance
- Job-board averages for medical billing outsourcing are self-reported and can't be traced back to a payroll.
- The defensible US wage rows are the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for the two occupations that cover billing work.
- Honest Taskers bills medical billing outsourcing work at $10.00 to $12.65 an hour, which is the practice's cost rather than the biller's take-home.
- Percentage of collections pricing buries the billing wage inside a share of your revenue.
- No public source publishes offshore billing wages, so delivery location is what gets compared here.
This guide opens with what the people doing outsourced billing work take home, then why no vendor will quote one rate. From there it traces percentage of collections pricing down to the worker's paycheck, sets per claim pricing beside hourly rates, and prices a US in-house biller against the quote in front of you. It compares offshore delivery with onshore, lists what moves a rate up or down, and asks whether credentials raise a wage. Then it states what Honest Taskers charges for this work, shows how a practice reads a quote honestly, counts what a cheap contract costs later, explains how a biller grows earnings inside a contract, and closes with where these figures come from.
What does medical billing outsourcing pay the people doing the work?
Medical billing outsourcing pays the people doing the work an hourly wage their employer sets, and no firm on this market publishes what that wage is. The question belongs to the biller, so here's the biller's answer first.
What is publishable is the US occupation the work maps to. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put the median wage for medical records specialists, the occupation coded 29-2072, at $24.59 an hour, or $51,140 a year, in its "Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics" release for May 2025. Medical secretaries and administrative assistants, coded 43-6013, sat at $22.08 an hour, or $45,930 a year, in the same release.
Everything else circulating on this query is a job-board aggregate. Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter and the rest build them from entries people submit about themselves, publish no methodology alongside, and none of it traces back to a payroll anybody audited. So they aren't repeated here, and not one figure on this page comes from one.
Why can no vendor quote one medical billing outsourcing rate?
No vendor can quote one rate because medical billing outsourcing is sold on three meters at once, and each meter reaches a worker's pay by a different route. Practice and biller both need this before anything else makes sense.
Percentage of collections charges a share of what the firm brings in. Per claim charges a fee for each claim it files. Hourly staffing charges for a person's time instead. Transcure publishes 3% to 5% of monthly collections on its own site, while Honest Taskers bills $10.00 to $12.65 an hour, and those two numbers mean nothing side by side until somebody converts them.
That's why a single national average for this work is fiction. Averaging across three meters, several countries and two employment models describes nothing a reader can act on. Billing companies know it, which is why so few publish a rate at all, and it's the hole every aggregate page on this query leaves wide open.
How does percentage of collections pricing reach a billing outsourcing worker's pay?
Percentage of collections pricing reaches a worker's pay indirectly, because the firm takes a share of your revenue first and then pays salaries out of it. Biller first here, practice at the end.
Transcure, one of the few firms publishing a number, lists 3% to 5% of monthly collections on its own site. That share has to cover the biller's wage, the supervisor above them, clearinghouse fees, software seats, denial work and the firm's margin. A wage is one line inside it. No firm on this market breaks that line out, and none is obliged to.
For the biller, the consequence is that pay doesn't move when a client's collections move, unless the employer chooses to pass it through. The practice gets a blunter version of the same news. A percentage quote tells you nothing about who works your account or what they're paid, so the only way to learn either is to ask during the sales call.
How does per claim pricing compare with hourly billing outsourcing rates?
Per claim pricing and hourly billing outsourcing rates compare badly, because one buys an output and the other buys time, and only the hourly meter names a number tied to a person. This one is the practice's question.
Hourly is the transparent meter. Honest Taskers bills $10.00 to $12.65 an hour, which works out to roughly $800 to $1,012 a month at 20 hours a week and $1,600 to $2,024 a month at 40. Staffingly, by its own published pricing, charges $399 a week per person at 45 hours, dropping to $349 at five people and $299 at ten.
| Pricing meter | What the practice pays | What it reveals about the worker's pay |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of collections | A share of collections, such as Transcure's published 3% to 5% of monthly collections | Nothing, since the wage sits inside the share alongside software and margin |
| Per claim | A fee for each claim filed, quoted by volume rather than published | Nothing, and the claim count behind one worker's day isn't disclosed either |
| Hourly staffing | A rate for a person's time, such as Honest Taskers' $10.00 to $12.65 an hour | An upper bound, because the wage has to fit under the billed rate |
Per claim resists the same math. Firms quote it against your volume instead of publishing a rate, and appeals, resubmissions and patient statements frequently fall outside the quoted fee. No per claim dollar figure appears on this page for that reason.
What does a US in-house biller cost against medical billing outsourcing?
A US in-house biller costs the wage plus the employer's benefit load, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts at roughly 43% on top of wages for private industry workers. The practice owns this comparison outright.
Run it on the two occupations that cover the work. Medical records specialists earned a median $51,140 a year and medical secretaries $45,930 in the May 2025 "Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics" release (bls.gov, read September 2026). Add the load from the March 2026 "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation" release, published 12 June 2026 (bls.gov), where benefits ran $14.01 an hour against $32.60 in wages.
| Occupation | SOC code | Median annual wage, May 2025 | With benefits at 43% on top |
|---|---|---|---|
| Medical records specialists | 29-2072 | $51,140 | About $73,130 |
| Medical secretaries and administrative assistants | 43-6013 | $45,930 | About $65,680 |
Neither total is the outsourcing bill. It's the number a quote has to beat, and it still leaves out recruiting, cover for sick days and the retraining that follows a resignation. For the pay side of the role itself, our medical billing salary page carries the detail.
How does offshore medical billing outsourcing pay differ from onshore?
Offshore medical billing outsourcing pay differs from onshore pay by an amount no public source measures, so delivery location and client rate are what can honestly be set beside each other. Both readers deserve that stated plainly rather than filled in.
Location is the part firms do publish. AGS Health runs its delivery center in Chennai. Staffingly states it operates secured facilities across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and Transcure lists offices in Texas, New Jersey and Florida. Honest Taskers recruits in the Philippines, Latin America, India and Pakistan, and its professionals work the client's US time zone wherever they happen to sit.
What nobody publishes is the wage behind any of those addresses. Payscale, Glassdoor and OnlineJobs.ph carry self-reported entries for offshore assistants, unaudited and moving quarterly, so this page prints no offshore wage at all. Practices weighing a single region can start from our guide to hiring a virtual medical biller from the Philippines.
What moves a billing outsourcing rate up or down?
Experience, payer complexity, weekly hours, denial depth and the size of the order move a billing outsourcing rate up or down. Practice and biller read the same list from opposite ends of it.
Buyers and billers feel these five levers differently. A rate that climbs for payer complexity doesn't automatically climb for the person handling it, and a rate that drops on a ten-seat order leaves individual wages exactly where they were. That gap between the two effects is where a quote gets misread.
| Lever | What it does to the practice's rate | What it does to the biller's pay |
|---|---|---|
| Experience | Raises the quoted rate for a senior assignment | Moves the person toward the top of the employer's band |
| Payer complexity | Raises it where prior authorization and appeals dominate | Rewards specialty knowledge over general data entry |
| Weekly hours | Sets the monthly total, not the hourly figure | Sets the monthly total the same way |
| Denial depth | Raises it when aged accounts receivable is in scope | Rewards appeal writing and payer follow-up |
| Order size | Lowers the per-person rate on multi-seat orders | Leaves individual pay unchanged |
Order size is the lever a practice controls outright. Staffingly's published tiers fall from $399 a week per person to $349 at five people and $299 at ten, which is the clearest public example of volume moving a rate. Practices comparing named firms can start with our roundup of virtual medical biller companies.
Which credentials raise pay in outsourced medical billing?
No credential carries a verified pay premium in outsourced medical billing, because the bodies issuing them publish exams and curricula rather than wage data. Straight to the biller on this one.
The two bodies US practices recognize are the AAPC (aapc.com) and the American Health Information Management Association (ahima.org), both read September 2026. AAPC issues the Certified Professional Biller. AHIMA issues the Certified Coding Specialist. Neither organization publishes what either credential adds to an hourly wage, and neither claims to.
What a certification does is shorten the argument. It hands a hiring manager evidence before any trial period starts, which counts for more where the employer has never met you and won't meet you. Any figure claiming a precise lift from a credential comes out of a salary survey of people who chose to answer it, so read it as marketing rather than as pay data.
What does Honest Taskers pay for medical billing outsourcing work?
Honest Taskers bills medical billing outsourcing work at $10.00 to $12.65 an hour, and that rate is what a practice pays for the hour rather than what the biller takes home. The distinction matters to both readers, so here it is once, plainly.
At that rate a practice spends roughly $800 to $1,012 a month for 20 hours a week and $1,600 to $2,024 a month for 40. Where a placement lands inside the band depends on experience, specialty knowledge, schedule and the role itself. Honest Taskers doesn't publish what it pays its own professionals, and this page won't estimate a figure the company hasn't stated.
What the company does publish sits around the rate. New clients may receive a two-week working trial with their first selected professional. Professionals are HIPAA-trained, the security environment is described as SOC 2 audit ready, retention runs 99.6% average monthly, and most placements complete within one to three weeks of a signed agreement.
How does a practice read a billing outsourcing quote honestly?
A practice reads a billing outsourcing quote honestly by converting every meter to one unit, then asking what the quote leaves out. Written for the buyer, and worth doing before the second vendor call.
Five questions do most of the work, and every one of them has an answer the vendor already knows.
- Convert the billing quote to a cost per paid claim, using your own monthly claim count.
- Ask which billing work sits outside the headline fee, starting with appeals and patient statements.
- Ask who works the account, where they sit, and whether the billing staff are shared across clients.
- Ask what happens to the billing fee when your collections climb, and whether the share gets renegotiated.
- Compare the result against a loaded in-house billing salary, never against a bare wage.
The fourth question separates the models faster than anything else. A percentage rises with your revenue while a staffing rate holds flat, so growth alone can flip which quote is cheaper. Practices ready to collect quotes can work from our list of medical billing outsourcing companies.
What does cheap medical billing outsourcing cost later?
Cheap medical billing outsourcing costs you later in denials nobody worked, accounts nobody chased and turnover on the staff assigned to your account. The practice pays this bill, usually a quarter after signing.
Underpriced work gets staffed thin, and thin staffing surfaces in the aging report well before it surfaces in the invoice. The Society for Human Resource Management put average cost per hire at $5,475 for non-executive roles in its 2025 Benchmarking Report, and Gallup estimates replacing one employee at 50% to 200% of annual salary. Somebody absorbs that churn. A cheap contract shifts it onto your account instead of removing it.
The honest test is your net collection rate ninety days after a switch, not the number on the contract. A quote that shaves the fee and drops your clean claim rate has relocated cost, not deleted it.
How does a biller grow earnings inside a medical billing outsourcing contract?
A biller grows earnings inside a medical billing outsourcing contract by moving into the work the contract prices highest, which is denials, appeals and aged accounts receivable. Back to the biller for the last practical section.
The spread inside the comparable US occupation shows the ceiling is real. Medical records specialists earned $17.79 an hour at the tenth percentile and $39.01 at the ninetieth in the May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics release, more than double from one end to the other. Specialty depth, payer knowledge and a schedule the client can plan around are what carry a person across that spread.
Reliability does more than any single course on its own. Working a US schedule, documenting what you touched and holding a clean claim rate are what turn one placement into renewed hours, and renewed hours are what compound. Where a credential fits into that path is covered in our guide to medical billing training and certification.
Where do these medical billing outsourcing pay figures come from?
These figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and each company's own published pricing, nowhere else. The wage rows are the May 2025 "Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics" release for medical records specialists (29-2072) and medical secretaries and administrative assistants (43-6013).
The 43% benefit load comes from the March 2026 "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation" release, published 12 June 2026, where benefits ran $14.01 an hour against $32.60 in wages. Transcure's 3% to 5% of monthly collections, Staffingly's $399 a week and Honest Taskers' $10.00 to $12.65 an hour each came from the company's own site, read September 2026. Cost per hire is from the Society for Human Resource Management, the replacement range from Gallup.
One limitation, named rather than hedged. No billing company here publishes what it pays the biller on your account, so every worker-side number is a US occupational proxy or a client rate, never a payroll. Savings percentages are absent for the same reason, since none has been worked out and approved.
Talk to Honest Taskers about staffing your medical billing work.