Customer Story
How Direct Orthopedic Care Recovered $430,000 in Lost Revenue with Arrow
“With Arrow, we recovered $430,000 from denied claims. Our A/R days dropped from 42 to 18, and staff time spent on denials decreased by 85%.”
Denitra Frierson, Practice Administrator, Direct Orthopedic Care
About Direct Orthopedic Care
Direct Orthopedic Care (DOC) is a leading orthopedic surgery group operating 10 locations across Texas, with 46 providers delivering high-quality musculoskeletal care. Their model is built on fast access, comprehensive treatment, and exceptional patient experience — but rapid growth had intensified pressure on their revenue operations.
Handling 22,500 annual claims, DOC’s six-person billing team was increasingly weighed down by denials, slow reimbursement cycles, and rising operational costs. What started as minor friction had escalated into a systemic barrier to cash flow, staff productivity, and continued expansion.
DOC needed more than incremental improvements. They needed a revenue cycle system that could scale with the practice.
Opportunity
Before partnering with Arrow, DOC faced challenges across their billing and financial operations:
Solution
DOC selected Arrow as its revenue cycle transformation partner, leveraging the platform’s intelligent workflows and automation to overhaul the denial-heavy parts of the RCM lifecycle.
Staff Overload and Inefficiency
Billing staff spent 40+ hours per week working denials.
Attempts to fix the issue through hiring and outsourcing increased cost without improving outcomes.
A Lengthy Revenue Cycle
42-day A/R cycles strained cash flow.
Leadership lacked predictability for planning expansions and resource allocation.
DOC had tried every traditional approach. None moved the needle enough. They needed automation, intelligence, and a partner obsessed with denial reduction.
High Initial Denial Rates
8% of claims were denied on first submission.
Denials required manual review, appeals, and payer follow-up, often consuming multiple staff hours.
Lost or delayed revenue slowed investments in growth and patient services.
AI-Powered Denial Prevention
Arrow automatically identifies, scrubs, and corrects claim errors before submission, dramatically reducing first-pass denials.
Intelligent Denial Management
Denials that do occur are automatically categorized, routed, and prioritized using payer-specific logic, replacing hours of manual work with guided workflows.
Accelerated Revenue Cycle Operations
Arrow restructured DOC’s revenue cycle into a real-time, exception-based model, enabling the billing team to focus only on what actually needs human judgment.
Deep Financial Visibility
Arrow provided complete transparency into:
Denial trends
Payer behavior
A/R drivers
Cost-to-collect performance
This visibility empowered DOC to make informed, strategic decisions with confidence.
+7% Increase in Collections
Recovered $430,000 in annual revenue from previously denied claims, achieving an 85% recovery rate on claims that would have otherwise been written off.
Impact
Based on the results documented in DOC’s internal report.
1.5× Faster Revenue Cycle
Reduced A/R days from 42 to 18, enabling:
Faster cash availability
Operational stability
Investment in new locations and clinical services
64% Reduction in Cost to Collect
With automation replacing manual labor:
Denial management work dropped 85%
DOC reallocated 2.5 full-time employees to patient-facing roles, without hiring additional staff
Arrow didn’t just improve DOC’s billing metrics — it expanded capacity, strengthened financial predictability, and allowed the organization to reinvest in what matters most: patient care.
Looking Ahead
With Arrow powering their revenue cycle, Direct Orthopedic Care is positioned for continued expansion across Texas and beyond. The practice now runs on a modern RCM infrastructure that supports scale, reduces administrative lift, and ensures revenue is collected faster and more reliably.
What began as an effort to fix denials has become a structural transformation in how DOC operates: efficient, predictable, and built for growth.
About Direct Orthopedic Care
Direct Orthopedic Care (DOC) is a leading orthopedic surgery group operating 10 locations across Texas, with 46 providers delivering high-quality musculoskeletal care. Their model is built on fast access, comprehensive treatment, and exceptional patient experience — but rapid growth had intensified pressure on their revenue operations.
Handling 22,500 annual claims, DOC’s six-person billing team was increasingly weighed down by denials, slow reimbursement cycles, and rising operational costs. What started as minor friction had escalated into a systemic barrier to cash flow, staff productivity, and continued expansion.
DOC needed more than incremental improvements. They needed a revenue cycle system that could scale with the practice.
Challenge
Before partnering with Arrow, DOC faced challenges across their billing and financial operations:
High Initial Denial Rates
8% of claims were denied on first submission.
Denials required manual review, appeals, and payer follow-up, often consuming multiple staff hours.
Lost or delayed revenue slowed investments in growth and patient services.
Staff Overload and Inefficiency
Billing staff spent 40+ hours per week working denials.
Attempts to fix the issue through hiring and outsourcing increased cost without improving outcomes.
A Lengthy Revenue Cycle
42-day A/R cycles strained cash flow.
Leadership lacked predictability for planning expansions and resource allocation.
DOC had tried every traditional approach. None moved the needle enough. They needed automation, intelligence, and a partner obsessed with denial reduction.
Solution
DOC selected Arrow as its revenue cycle transformation partner, leveraging the platform’s intelligent workflows and automation to overhaul the denial-heavy parts of the RCM lifecycle.
AI-Powered Denial Prevention
Arrow automatically identifies, scrubs, and corrects claim errors before submission, dramatically reducing first-pass denials.
Intelligent Denial Management
Denials that do occur are automatically categorized, routed, and prioritized using payer-specific logic, replacing hours of manual work with guided workflows.
Accelerated Revenue Cycle Operations
Arrow restructured DOC’s revenue cycle into a real-time, exception-based model, enabling the billing team to focus only on what actually needs human judgment.
Deep Financial Visibility
Arrow provided complete transparency into:
Denial trends
Payer behavior
A/R drivers
Cost-to-collect performance
This visibility empowered DOC to make informed, strategic decisions with confidence.
Impact
Based on the results documented in DOC’s internal report.
+7% Increase in Collections
Recovered $430,000 in annual revenue from previously denied claims, achieving an 85% recovery rate on claims that would have otherwise been written off.
1.5× Faster Revenue Cycle
Reduced A/R days from 42 to 18, enabling:
Faster cash availability
Operational stability
Investment in new locations and clinical services
64% Reduction in Cost to Collect
With automation replacing manual labor:
Denial management work dropped 85%
DOC reallocated 2.5 full-time employees to patient-facing roles, without hiring additional staff
Arrow didn’t just improve DOC’s billing metrics — it expanded capacity, strengthened financial predictability, and allowed the organization to reinvest in what matters most: patient care.
Looking Ahead
With Arrow powering their revenue cycle, Direct Orthopedic Care is positioned for continued expansion across Texas and beyond. The practice now runs on a modern RCM infrastructure that supports scale, reduces administrative lift, and ensures revenue is collected faster and more reliably.
What began as an effort to fix denials has become a structural transformation in how DOC operates: efficient, predictable, and built for growth.
Unlock Predictable, Modern Revenue Cycle Performance
Arrow is the AI Operating System for RCM teams — built to help healthcare organizations get paid faster, reduce administrative work, and grow with confidence.
Unlock Predictable, Modern Revenue Cycle Performance
Arrow is the AI Operating System for RCM teams — built to help healthcare organizations get paid faster, reduce administrative work, and grow with confidence.
Unlock Predictable, Modern Revenue Cycle Performance
Arrow is the AI Operating System for RCM teams — built to help healthcare organizations get paid faster, reduce administrative work, and grow with confidence.