Substance Use Disorder & Mental Health·Published September 2026

14% reduction in denial rate while absorbing a 48% increase in charge volume as new facilities opened

A multi-state behavioral health group moved claims follow-up, denial management, and payment posting to MBS under one accountable process — then went through a full close-and-reopen restructuring cycle without losing continuity or adding billing headcount.

Denial rate: -14%
Net collection rate: 90.37%
Monthly collections: $250K → $1.4M
Charge volume absorbed: +48%

Talk about your numbers

Specialty

Substance Use Disorder & Mental Health

Practice size

~16K patients a year

Locations

13 locations across the US

Payer mix

100% commercial

Client tenure with MBS

6+ years

Engagement objective

What the client needed

Bring claims follow-up, denial management, and payment posting under one accountable RCM process.
Give leadership real-time visibility into A/R, payer performance, and revenue forecasts.

Starting position

The challenges

Outstanding claims follow-up was not translating into payments.
Denial management was not handled optimally by the prior billing partner.
Third-party contractual discounts were going unnoticed — no process to identify or work them.

Solutions

What MBS put in place

End-to-end RCM ownership

Claims worked within 7 days of receipt; follow-up within 10–12 days.
Real-time denial capture, worked the next business day.
SOPs and tiered A/R follow-up protocols segmented by payer, aging, and claim status.
Reconciliation workflow to recover hidden third-party contractual discounts and flag errors early.

Flexible capacity model

Team sized to the client's active facility count rather than a fixed contract headcount.
Coverage scaled down after the Q1 2023 closures and back up ahead of the Q4 openings, within the same agreement.
New sites onboarded to existing SOPs, removing the process-design lag that normally slows a new location's first billing cycles.
One accountable process maintained across every footprint change.
New facilities onboarded roughly every 15 days once trust was established, with zero re-implementation lag.

Reporting and analytics

Weekly and monthly reports on revenue goals, payer mix, and denial trends.
A/R reporting segmented into payable and non-payable categories.

Impact

What changed

A 90.37% annual average net collection rate, while collections grew from $250K at onboarding to $1.4 million in monthly collections within 10 months as the pilot program succeeded.
Denial rates dropped by 14% since onboarding; claims consistently worked within SLA.
Full leadership visibility into A/R aging, payer performance, and revenue forecasts.
Continuity of process maintained through a complete open-close-reopen cycle.

Scale

Scaling through a full restructuring cycle

$250K to $3.9M in monthly collections since 2020

Facilities and revenue collected by year, with what changed
Year	Facilities (year-end)	Revenue collected	What changed
2022	9	$43.43M	Client worked with MBS for 10 months on a pilot, then fully transitioned from their previous RCM partner. All processes were well established by now.
2023	10	$33.85M	Client restructuring: 4 facilities closed in Q1, 5 new sites opened in Q4. MBS adjusted coverage within the same agreement — new sites integrated into existing SOPs without process delays.
2024	13	$46.77M	New sites fully ramped and engagement expanded to the client's remaining facilities; 48% charge increase absorbed without added client-side headcount.

Time to first results

Measurable improvements in A/R and denial rates were visible within 60 days of onboarding. New sites added during the 2023 restructuring were brought onto live, existing billing workflows.

Why it worked

The operating model behind the result

A team structure that scales with the client.
Results that earned trust and an expanded engagement.
Strict SLAs: claims worked in 7 days, denials actioned the next business day.
Deep behavioral health payer expertise, including LOC-based reimbursement.
A reporting and MIS infrastructure built from scratch.

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