Answers / Pricing
IDR filing service pricing: flat fee vs contingency
IDR filing services price one of two ways. Contingency firms charge 15 to 25 percent of the recovery, meaning the dollars collected above the payer's initial payment. Flat fee services charge a fixed amount per arbitration no matter how large the award is; Lido IDR works this way. On top of either model, the federal government charges each party a $15 administrative fee per dispute, and the certified IDR entity charges a fee that the losing party ultimately pays. Under the No Surprises Act the arbiter picks one side's offer in full, so the fee structure changes your net on every award.
The word that does the most work in any filing service contract is recovery. The recovery is what the service collected for you above what the payer initially paid. If the payer paid $8,000 on a claim and the arbitration produces $18,000, the recovery is $10,000, and a contingency fee applies to that $10,000. Make sure your contract defines it the same way, because the difference between a percentage of the recovery and a percentage of total collections is enormous.
The contingency model, worked through
Contingency is the default in this market. Law firms and most IDR vendors charge 15 to 25 percent of the recovery, billed when the money arrives. Two worked examples:
| Recovery | Contingency fee at 15 to 25 percent | You keep |
|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $1,500 to $2,500 | $7,500 to $8,500 |
| $50,000 | $7,500 to $12,500 | $37,500 to $42,500 |
The appeal is obvious: no fee unless you collect. The cost is just as plain: the fee scales with success. The work of screening a claim, sending the open negotiation notice, filing the dispute, and writing the evidence packet is roughly the same whether the award lands at $10,000 or $50,000, but the contingency fee on the second is five times the first. Contingency also shapes what gets filed. A firm paid on the size of the recovery has little reason to file the $900 claims, even in batches, and those claims are where a lot of out-of-network revenue actually leaks.
The flat fee model
The alternative is a flat fee per arbitration, quoted for your claim volume. Lido IDR charges this way: no percentage of the award, and every dollar of the award is yours. The fee is the same whether the recovery is $10,000 or $50,000, so the effective rate falls as awards grow, and the incentive flips. A flat fee service is paid to file everything worth filing, including the small claims a contingency firm skips, because its economics do not depend on award size.
The honest trade: a flat fee is owed on disputes you lose too. The published record is the context for that risk. Providers win 85.8 percent of decided federal disputes, and the median award runs 4.7 times the qualifying payment amount, so on a screened book of eligible claims the math strongly favors paying a fixed cost over surrendering a percentage. The screening is the point: a flat fee service should be selective about what it files, and show you why each dispute is worth initiating.
The government fees both models sit on
Whoever files for you, two fees attach to every federal dispute under the No Surprises Act:
- The federal administrative fee: $15 per party per dispute. Set by the May 2026 rule for disputes initiated on or after June 11, 2026. Both sides pay it, it is not refunded, and batching many claims into one dispute means paying it once instead of many times.
- The certified IDR entity fee: the losing party pays it. Both parties deposit the entity fee when the dispute is filed, and the prevailing party gets its deposit refunded. The amount varies by entity and by whether the dispute is single or batched, so check the current fee schedule for the entity on your dispute. Since providers win 85.8 percent of decided disputes, in the typical dispute the payer ends up paying it.
Ask any service how these fees are handled: who fronts them, how refunds are tracked, and who absorbs the entity fee on a loss. The answers belong in the contract, not in a conversation. The full vetting list is in 10 questions to ask an IDR filing service.
How to compare quotes
Put every quote in the same units: expected fee per arbitration at your real volume and your real award sizes. For a contingency quote, multiply your typical recovery by the rate. For a flat fee quote, use the number as given. Then check three contract terms that move the comparison: how recovery is defined, whether the fee applies to money collected during open negotiation before any dispute is filed, and who pays the government fees on losses. If you are deciding whether to use a service at all, start with DIY federal IDR vs a filing service.
Want the flat fee math for your volume?
Bring your payer mix and rough out-of-network claim volume to a 30 minute call. We will walk through what groups like yours recover at federal IDR and quote a flat fee per arbitration. Talk to an IDR specialist.