Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but....
Over the years, I have tried to negotiate our fee schedule with almost every carrier, on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful only twice.
Basically, if you are a small private practice and represent only 1 or even a handful of providers, the insurance company just did not seem willing to bother. Their attitude was "Here is our fee schedule. If you don't like it, don't be participating." If you are a private practice, my recommendation would be to join a strong IPA in your area. The IPAs have negotiating power and the insurance companies are more likely to listen when the IPA threatens to withdraw hundred or thousands of providers if they can't get a better fee schedule. That is exactly the same situation for large healthcare organizations.
I thought as a subspecialist with only 3 doctors of the specialty in a county of almost 1.5 million people, I could get someone to listen. I was mistaken. I tried a couple of different types of proposals - across the board percentage increase over standard, payment as a percent of our billed amount, payment as a percent of Medicare, or even a carve out schedule where at least our most common codes could get better reimbursement. The 2 times I was successful one was for payment as a percent of our billed amount, and the other was to pay a flat additional fee for certain services. As a result, we decided to withdraw from the 5 lowest paying carriers. The best business decision for us was to join an IPA, which meant a 30-40% increase for our largest commercial carrier.
Eventually, we were incorporated into a large healthcare system. The healthcare system has a significantly increased fee schedule for all carriers. When I saw what the insurances are willing to pay when you have negotiating power, it made me very frustrated that no one would listen when I wanted even a small increase. I will see if I can find samples of the letters I sent.
Good luck!!
