Why Your Out-of-Network Claims Are Being Denied — And What Attorney Eliott Dear Is Doing About It

If you are a surgeon, anesthesiologist, or ER physician who provides out-of-network care, you already know the game. You save the patient's life. You send the bill. The insurer sends back a fraction of what you are owed — or nothing at all. Then they dare you to fight it.

Most providers do not fight. They write off the loss, eat the underpayment, and move on. That is what the insurers are counting on.

Eliott Dear, Esq. has spent over fifteen years making sure that calculation does not work.

Based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Eliott Dear is the founder of Claims Assassins and ED Revenue Targeted Billing (EDRTB). He is a Fordham Law graduate, former Clifford Chance associate, and one of a small number of attorneys in the United States who focuses exclusively on out-of-network medical billing disputes and Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) under both federal and state frameworks.

The problem Eliott Dear solves is simple to describe and brutally hard to execute: when an insurer underpays or denies a legitimate out-of-network medical claim, he files the dispute, builds the legal case, and fights it through IDR — the arbitration process created by the No Surprises Act and its state-level predecessors — until the provider gets paid what they are owed.

Unlike traditional medical billing companies that process claims and hope for the best, Claims Assassins operates as an attorney-led practice. Every filing carries the weight of legal representation. Every appeal is built on statutory authority, not just billing codes. This distinction matters because IDR panels — the arbitrators who decide these disputes — respond to legal arguments, not just itemized charges.

The healthcare reimbursement landscape has shifted dramatically since the No Surprises Act took effect in January 2022. Federal IDR was supposed to level the playing field between providers and insurers. In practice, it created a backlog of hundreds of thousands of disputes. The system is overwhelmed, and insurers have used the chaos to delay and deny at scale.

State IDR programs, particularly in New York where Eliott Dear built his practice, have been more effective. New York's surprise bill law predates the federal version and has established arbitration infrastructure that actually moves. Providers who know how to navigate the state system recover significantly more than those stuck in the federal backlog.

This is where Eliott Dear's experience becomes the differentiator. With over a decade of case history in New York IDR and a deep understanding of both federal and state dispute resolution, he knows which path gives each claim the best shot at full reimbursement.

For surgeons and specialists who have watched their out-of-network revenue erode year after year, the question is not whether to fight back. It is whether to fight with a billing company or a lawyer. Eliott Dear's answer: you should not have to choose. Claims Assassins handles the full revenue cycle — billing, appeals, IDR, and collection — with an attorney's signature on every filing.

Learn more at claims-assassins.com or contact Eliott Dear directly at edear@edrtb.com.

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