caliber
Canon
v1.0 — April 2026 — Internal
01 — Definition

What this company is.

Caliber is an independent billing governance layer for self-funded employers. We verify that high-cost healthcare claims are accurate before the employer pays them.

Every self-funded employer holds high-cost claims for 14-60 days before releasing payment. During that hold, nobody independently verifies that what was billed matches what was delivered. The TPA processes the claim. The TPA runs automated edits. The TPA releases payment. The TPA is both processor and verifier. That's the structural gap.

Caliber fills the hold window with independent verification. Claims above the employer's defined threshold are reviewed by external billing governance specialists against coding guidelines, provider contracts, clinical documentation, and delivery evidence. The result is a Billing Governance Certificate documenting what was verified, what was accurate, and what wasn't.

One-sentence version: The claim was processed. It was about to be paid. Nobody verified it. Caliber verifies it.

What we are not

The triad

Caliber is the third leg of a governance platform alongside Cadence (continuation governance for specialty pharmacy) and Curated (episode governance for behavioral health). Each product governs a different dimension of employer health plan spend. Each is structurally independent. Each produces a governance artifact for the same buyer.

Cadence: "The prescription was approved. It refilled for a year. Nobody governed the continuation."
Curated: "The member needed care. They were sent wherever. Nobody measured whether it worked."
Caliber: "The claim was processed. It was about to be paid. Nobody verified it."

c
02 — The Founding Observation

Every public company audits its books.
No self-funded employer audits its claims.

A Fortune 500 company pays PwC or Deloitte to independently verify its financial statements. Nobody questions why. The auditor doesn't run the company. They verify that what's reported matches what happened. The independence is the point.

That same Fortune 500 company pays $200M in annual health plan claims through a TPA. The TPA processes the claims. The TPA runs automated edits (ClaimsXten, etc.) to catch coding errors. The TPA releases payment. The TPA sends the employer a report showing what was paid.

Nobody independently verifies any of it.

The TPA is processor, editor, and de facto auditor of its own work. That's not independence. It's not even oversight. It's a structural conflict that every self-funded employer lives with because no alternative exists.

Retrospective audit firms (Cotiviti, HMS, Optum) review claims after payment and attempt recovery. Average timeline: 12-18 months. Average recovery: 1-2% of spend reviewed. The employer gets a fraction of the overpayment back, years later, after the money has already left.

Billing inaccuracy doesn't stay in the finance department. It surfaces as higher premiums, higher deductibles, narrower networks, and reduced benefits for the people the plan is supposed to protect. The employer absorbs the overpayment. The members absorb the consequences.

Caliber doesn't audit after the fact. Caliber verifies during the existing payment-hold window, before the employer pays. The TPA already holds high-cost claims for 14-60 days. That window is currently empty. Caliber fills it with independent verification.

Measure twice.

The carpenter's rule applied to healthcare claims. Everybody else measures once — or doesn't measure at all. Caliber measures twice: the TPA processes the claim, and Caliber independently verifies it before the employer pays.

c
03 — Structural Claims

What we assert and what supports it.

Evidence tiers (following Cadence's published taxonomy):
Measured — directly observed in a completed verification cycle.
Derived — calculated from measured inputs using documented formulas.
Directional — forward-state estimates with explicit assumptions.
Industry-sourced — published by third parties (OIG, AHLA, MGMA). Not yet validated by Caliber's own cycles.

Claim 1: High-cost claims have a measurable inaccuracy rate.

We expect first-cycle discrepancy rates of 4-6% on high-cost claims above $25,000. This estimate is grounded in multiple independent sources:

The industry-wide range spans 3-10%, but the upper end includes intentional fraud, which Caliber is not designed to detect. Our expected range — 4-6% — reflects structural billing inaccuracy: wrong codes, wrong rates, wrong duration, wrong credentials. Not criminal behavior. Structural errors that cost the employer real money.

For a 15,000-life employer with $80M in annual claims, 4-6% inaccuracy on high-cost claims = $800K-$1.5M in overpayment annually.

Common inaccuracy types by expected prevalence and average discrepancy:

TypeCheckEst. PrevalenceAvg. Discrepancy
UpcodingCODEVAL2-4% of claims$3,000 - $8,000
LOS discrepancyDURVAL1-2% of claims$8,000 - $25,000
Duplicate billingDUPCHECK0.5-1% of claimsFull claim amount
Rate errorRATEVAL1-3% of claims$2,000 - $5,000
Credential mismatchCREDVAL0.5-1% of claims$3,000 - $10,000
UnbundlingBUNDLEVAL1-2% of claims$2,000 - $6,000
Phantom / incompleteSVCVAL0.5-1% of claims$5,000 - $30,000

Evidence status: Industry sources cited above. Not yet validated by Caliber's own verification cycles. The first pilot — the Caliber Baseline Study — will establish the actual rate. See Section 11.

Claim 2: The TPA cannot independently verify its own work.

TPAs use automated pre-payment editing tools (ClaimsXten, Optum, Cotiviti) that catch coding errors — missing modifiers, invalid code combinations, duplicate submissions. These tools are good at what they do. They catch approximately 5-8% of claims for editing.

What they don't do: verify that the services billed actually occurred at the level documented. Did the 21-day NICU stay actually last 21 days? Did the $85K spinal fusion include the post-operative physical therapy sessions that were billed? Did the provider who billed at attending-physician rates actually perform the procedure, or did a resident? Automated edits check code logic. They don't check delivery truth.

The TPA has no economic incentive to find these discrepancies. TPA revenue is based on claims processed — volume, not accuracy. The employer is the one who loses when inaccurate claims are paid. The incentives diverge.

Claim 3: Retrospective audit is too slow to prevent overpayment.

The retrospective claims audit industry is worth approximately $3B annually. Firms review paid claims, identify overpayments, and negotiate recovery from providers. Average recovery timeline: 12-18 months. Recovery rate: 50-70% of identified overpayments (providers dispute, negotiate, or disappear). Net recovery to the employer: 1-2% of claims reviewed.

Pre-payment verification eliminates the recovery problem entirely. If you don't overpay, you don't need to recover. The economic advantage is derived: retrospective recovery yields 50-70% of identified overpayments, after 12-18 months of administrative cost (provider disputes, appeals, collections). Net recovery to the employer is approximately $0.25 for every $1 of overpayment identified, after audit fees and recovery costs. Prevention retains the full dollar. The effective ratio is approximately 4:1 — $1 of prevented overpayment is worth $4 of attempted recovery.

Claim 4: The payment-hold window is operationally available.

Every TPA holds claims above a defined threshold (typically $10-50K) for additional review before releasing payment. This hold period ranges from 14-60 days depending on the TPA and the claim amount. The hold exists because high-cost claims represent disproportionate financial risk to the employer.

During the hold, the TPA performs its own review — medical necessity, benefit determination, provider contract compliance. Nobody else reviews. The hold window is available for independent verification without extending the payment timeline or interfering with the TPA's workflow.

Evidence status: Operational fact, confirmed across multiple TPA relationships. The specific hold thresholds and durations vary by TPA and employer contract.

Claim 5: Self-funded employers will pay for independent claims verification.

Self-funded employers already pay for retrospective claims audit ($50-200K annually). They already pay for stop-loss reinsurance ($1-3M annually). They already pay for benefits consulting ($100-300K annually). Independent pre-payment verification is a natural extension of the governance stack they're already buying.

The value proposition is direct: pay $X for Caliber, save $3-5X in prevented overpayments. The ROI conversation is the same one that sells Cadence and Curated — documented, measurable, independently verifiable.

Evidence status: Market pattern from adjacent governance purchases. Not yet validated by a signed Caliber contract.

c
04 — Methodology

The Billing Governance Standard (BGS v1.0).

Every Caliber verification cycle follows a published, versioned methodology. The standard defines what triggers review, who reviews, what they check, and what the deliverable contains.

Input

A weekly or bi-weekly extract of claims in hold status above the employer's defined threshold. Minimum data fields:

FieldRequiredPurpose
Claim IDYesUnique identifier for tracking
Member ID (de-identified)YesEpisode linkage
Provider / FacilityYesCredentialing and contract verification
Procedure codes (CPT/HCPCS)YesCoding accuracy review
Diagnosis codes (ICD-10)YesMedical appropriateness linkage
Billed amountYesRate and contract compliance
Service datesYesDuration and timing verification
Place of serviceYesFacility vs professional billing
Provider contract ratesOptionalContracted rate comparison
Clinical documentationOptionalDelivery evidence (when available)

Review thresholds

TierClaim AmountReview Scope
Tier 1$25,000+Full verification: coding, billing, documentation, contract compliance
Tier 2$10,000 - $24,999Coding and billing verification. Documentation review if flagged.
Tier 3Below $10,000Automated screening only. Manual review if algorithmically flagged.

Thresholds are configurable per employer. The default recommended threshold for full verification is $25,000, which captures approximately 70-80% of the employer's high-cost claims spend in 5-10% of total claim volume.

Seven required verification checks

  1. CODEVAL — Coding accuracy. Are the CPT/HCPCS codes consistent with the documented diagnosis, procedure, and level of service? Catches upcoding, unbundling, and incorrect modifier use.
  2. DUPCHECK — Duplicate detection. Has this service been billed previously for this member, date, and provider? Catches duplicate submissions and overlapping facility/professional billing.
  3. RATEVAL — Rate verification. Does the billed amount match the correct contracted rate for the network accessed? Self-funded plans involve reference-based pricing, carrier repricing, PPO rental networks, and direct contracts. RATEVAL verifies not just "billed vs allowed" (which the TPA already does) but "allowed vs what should have been allowed based on the correct network tier and contract application." Catches balance billing, incorrect fee schedule application, wrong network tier, and out-of-contract charges.
  4. DURVAL — Duration verification. For inpatient and residential stays, does the billed length of stay match clinical documentation? Catches LOS discrepancies and post-discharge billing.
  5. CREDVAL — Credential verification. Is the billing provider credentialed at the level billed? Catches physician-rate billing for NP/PA-delivered services and out-of-scope billing.
  6. SVCVAL — Service verification (triggered). Not applied to every claim. Fires when other checks (CODEVAL, DURVAL, CREDVAL) raise flags that suggest the billed services may not match delivery. When triggered, Caliber requests clinical documentation from the provider. Catches phantom billing and incomplete-service charges on the claims most likely to contain them.
  7. BUNDLEVAL — Bundle compliance. Are separately billed services that should be bundled per CMS/industry guidelines properly combined? Catches unbundling and fragmented billing.

Reviewers

Claims are reviewed by external billing governance specialists. Minimum qualifications: CPC (Certified Professional Coder), CCS (Certified Coding Specialist), or RHIA (Registered Health Information Administrator) with 3+ years of claims review experience. Reviewers must be external to the employer, the TPA, and the provider.

Each claim receives one of four determinations:

DeterminationMeaning
VerifiedClaim is accurate. Pay as submitted.
AdjustClaim contains correctable inaccuracies. Recommended adjustment documented.
HoldClaim requires additional documentation from provider before verification can complete.
EscalateClaim contains material discrepancies that require employer/TPA decision. Caliber documents the findings and recommended action. The employer decides whether to pay, adjust, or withhold payment. Caliber is advisory-only — never the decision-maker.

Turnaround

TPA Hold WindowTier 1 TurnaroundTier 2 Turnaround
14-60 days (standard)10 business days7 business days
14-21 days (short hold)5 business days3 business days

Returns to TPA with determination, recommended action, and supporting documentation. The hold window length is confirmed during onboarding. Caliber guarantees turnaround within the window or the claim passes through unreviewed — the employer never pays late because of Caliber.

Post-finding workflow

When a claim receives an Adjust or Escalate determination:

  1. Caliber documents the finding with specific line-item detail, the verification check that flagged it, and the recommended action.
  2. The finding is delivered to the employer and TPA simultaneously.
  3. The employer has 10 business days to review and dispute any finding. Disputed findings are reviewed by an independent third-party reviewer (external to both Caliber and the employer). If upheld, the finding stands. If overturned, it is removed from the Certificate and no prevented-overpayment share applies.
  4. For Adjust determinations, the TPA processes the corrected claim at the adjusted amount.
  5. For Escalate determinations, the employer directs the TPA on the payment decision. Caliber provides the evidence. The employer decides.

Caliber never communicates directly with providers. Never contacts members. Never issues payment instructions. The employer and TPA retain full authority over the payment decision. Caliber produces the intelligence. Same structural principle as Cadence: advisory-only.

TPA relationship positioning

Caliber is positioned to the TPA as an ERISA fiduciary best practice, not an indictment of TPA performance. The framing: "The plan sponsor is adding independent billing verification as part of its fiduciary governance program." This is analogous to a company hiring external auditors — it doesn't mean the CFO is suspected of fraud. It means the board requires independent verification. Most TPAs understand this framing because they serve ERISA-governed plans and know the fiduciary obligations their clients carry.

Caliber's findings, when they identify TPA editing gaps, are documented privately in the Billing Governance Certificate. They are not shared with the TPA's other clients. The relationship between Caliber and the TPA is professional, not adversarial. The TPA's editing catches code-level errors. Caliber verifies delivery truth. They are complementary layers, not competing reviews.

Deliverable: Billing Governance Certificate

At the end of each quarterly cycle, Caliber produces a Billing Governance Certificate documenting:

The Certificate is sealed, versioned, and immutable. It serves as evidence for stop-loss renewal conversations, ERISA fiduciary documentation, and board reporting.

c
05 — The Independence Requirement

Why nobody else does this.

Five entities touch a high-cost claim before the employer pays it. None can independently verify it:

1. The TPA cannot verify its own work.

The TPA processed the claim. Asking the TPA to verify it is asking them to audit themselves. Their automated edits catch code-level errors. They don't verify delivery truth. Their economic incentive is throughput, not accuracy.

2. The stop-loss carrier reviews for its own exposure, not the employer's accuracy.

Stop-loss reviews high-cost claims to determine reimbursement obligations. They're checking whether the claim exceeds the specific deductible and whether the covered services are within policy. They're not checking whether the services were delivered accurately. Their review serves their financial interest, not the employer's billing accuracy.

3. The provider cannot verify its own billing.

Self-audit of billing is a compliance obligation, not an independent governance function. Providers have economic incentive to bill at the highest defensible level. Internal compliance catches egregious errors. It doesn't produce an independent verification artifact for the employer.

4. The benefits consultant reports on spend, not accuracy.

Consultants benchmark the employer's spend against market data. They report that "your per-member cost is 8% above median." They don't verify individual claims. Benchmarking tells you the total looks high. It doesn't tell you which specific claims are wrong.

5. The employer has no verification capability.

A manufacturing company, a retailer, a bank — they don't have clinical billing expertise. They rely on the TPA and the consultant. Neither provides independent claim-level verification.

The structural requirement: Independent verification of high-cost claims requires an entity that is (1) independent of the TPA, (2) independent of the provider, (3) independent of the stop-loss carrier, and (4) operating on a published, versioned methodology with external reviewers and a sealed artifact. Caliber clears all four.

c
06 — Commercial Model

Where the money comes from.

Two revenue streams

1. PEPM governance fee ($2-5/employee/month). The employer pays for access to independent billing verification infrastructure. Covers reviewer capacity, methodology, reporting, and the Billing Governance Certificate. Volume-tiered:

TierCovered LivesPEPM
Tier 1Under 10,000$4.00 - $5.00
Tier 210,000 - 25,000$3.00 - $4.00
Tier 325,000 - 50,000$2.50 - $3.00
Tier 450,000+$2.00 - $2.50

2. Prevented-overpayment share (15-20% of verified savings). When Caliber identifies a billing discrepancy that the employer would have paid without verification, Caliber retains 15-20% of the prevented overpayment. The remaining 80-85% stays with the employer. Savings are documented at the line-item level and independently verifiable against claims data. Not modeled. Not estimated.

Dispute resolution: The employer has 10 business days to review and dispute any finding. Disputed findings are reviewed by an independent third-party reviewer. If upheld, the prevented-overpayment share applies. If overturned, it doesn't. Caliber never earns on disputed findings unless the dispute is independently resolved in Caliber's favor. This protects the employer and forces Caliber to be accurate.

Unit economics (modeled by discrepancy type)

A 15,000-life employer generating $80M in annual claims. High-cost claims above $25K: approximately $21M across 350 claims per year (average $60K per claim).

CheckEst. Flagged ClaimsAvg. DiscrepancyTotal
CODEVAL (upcoding)10 (2.9%)$5,500$55,000
DURVAL (LOS)5 (1.4%)$16,500$82,500
DUPCHECK (duplicate)3 (0.9%)$60,000$180,000
RATEVAL (rate)7 (2.0%)$3,500$24,500
CREDVAL (credential)3 (0.9%)$6,500$19,500
BUNDLEVAL (unbundling)5 (1.4%)$4,000$20,000
SVCVAL (triggered)2 (0.6%)$17,500$35,000
Total35 (10% by count)$416,500

Note: ~10% of claims contain at least one discrepancy, but total dollars affected represent ~2% of reviewed spend ($416K of $21M). Some claims have multiple findings. The per-dollar discrepancy rate is lower than the per-claim rate because most findings are partial adjustments, not full-claim errors. DUPCHECK is the exception — duplicates are full-claim recoveries.

Revenue MetricConservative (2%)Moderate (4%)
PEPM revenue ($3.50 x 15K x 12)$630,000$630,000
Total discrepancies identified$416,500$840,000
Prevented-overpayment share (17.5%)$72,888$147,000
Total revenue per employer$702,888$777,000
Direct cost (reviewers, infrastructure, pro-rata ops)$350,000$380,000
Contribution margin$352,888$397,000

Pilot pricing

First client: $2.00 PEPM only. No prevented-overpayment share. 90-day term. Prove the discrepancy rate. Produce the first Billing Governance Certificate. If the data doesn't justify continuation, walk away.

Second client: $3.00 PEPM + 10% prevented-overpayment share.

Third client onward: Full pricing.

The buyer's math

A 15,000-life employer paying $3.50 PEPM ($630K/year) for independent claims verification. Prevented overpayment: $416K-$840K. The employer keeps 82.5% of prevented overpayment ($343K-$693K). Net cost after retained savings: $287K or less. ROI: 1.5-2.2x in year one. This does not include the stop-loss premium reduction from documented billing governance, which is a second savings not modeled here.

c
07 — Competitive Position

What exists and why it's not this.

EntityWhat They DoWhy They're Not Caliber
CotivitiPayment accuracy for health plans. Pre- and post-payment editing. $1.6B acquisition by Verscend.Sells to payers, not employers. The health plan's payment accuracy vendor is optimizing the plan's economics, not the employer's. Different buyer, different incentive.
Optum / Change HealthcareClaimsXten pre-payment editing. Largest claims processing infrastructure in the US.Automated edits catch code-level errors. Don't verify delivery truth. Part of UHG — structural conflict when the same company processes claims and audits them.
HMS (now Gainwell)Cost containment and payment integrity for government and commercial payers.Retrospective. Recovery-based revenue model. 12-18 month timeline. Sells to payers.
Retrospective audit firmsPost-payment claims review and recovery.After the money is gone. Recovery rates are 50-70% of identified amounts. The employer waits over a year. Caliber prevents the overpayment from happening.
TPA internal reviewBuilt-in claims editing and high-cost claim review.Self-audit. No independence. Throughput incentive, not accuracy incentive.
Turquoise HealthPrice transparency data. Shows what prices should be.Data product, not verification service. Tells you the price is wrong. Doesn't stop you from paying it.

The competitive wedge: Every existing payment integrity company sells to health plans. Caliber sells to the self-funded employer. The employer is the one writing the check. The employer is the one with fiduciary duty under ERISA. The employer is the one who loses when inaccurate claims are paid. Nobody built independent pre-payment verification for the entity that actually pays.

Complement positioning

Caliber does not replace the employer's existing retrospective claims audit. It makes the audit smaller. The largest errors — the $30K LOS discrepancy, the $60K duplicate — are caught before payment. The retrospective audit firm reviews what's left. This is a complement sell, not a displacement sell. Benefits consultants can recommend Caliber alongside their existing audit firm relationship without conflict.

Broker and consultant economics

Benefits consultants are the primary distribution channel. When a consultant introduces Caliber to their client, the consultant participates through a referral structure: first-year referral fee of 5-8% of PEPM revenue, with ongoing advisory fees for multi-year engagements. Caliber is positioned as a tool the consultant brings to the renewal conversation — "we've added independent claims verification to your governance stack" — which strengthens the consultant's value to the client. The consultant who introduces Caliber holds a differentiated renewal story that competitors can't match.

c
08 — The Data Moat

What builds over time.

Every verified claim produces billing accuracy data. After two years of verification cycles across multiple employers, Caliber holds:

This dataset compounds with every cycle. It's collected independently, at the claim level, with documented methodology. Nobody else has it because nobody else is doing pre-payment verification for self-funded employers.

The clinical-billing intersection

Caliber's credential verification (CREDVAL) produces staffing-level data: which providers bill at physician rates, which use NP/PA-delivered services, and where the mismatch is systematic. When combined with Curated's clinical outcome data for behavioral health episodes, this enables a question nobody else can answer: does staffing-level accuracy correlate with clinical outcomes?

If a $45K residential SUD program bills at psychiatrist rates but uses NPs for medication management, and that program's PHQ-9 delta is 3 points lower than programs with actual psychiatrist involvement — that's a finding with implications for network curation, pricing, and quality measurement. Caliber produces the billing truth. Curated produces the outcome truth. Together, they produce something neither can produce alone.

c
09 — The Stop-Loss Angle

Why underwriters care.

Stop-loss carriers reimburse claims above the specific deductible. If those claims are inaccurate, the carrier overpays. The carrier has limited ability to verify — they see the claim, the TPA's adjudication, and the EOB. They don't independently verify delivery.

An employer with a Caliber Billing Governance Certificate is demonstrably lower risk:

The thesis: stop-loss carriers who recognize the Billing Governance Certificate will offer preferential renewal terms, because verified claims reduce their reimbursement risk. This is the same thesis Cadence holds with the Governance Certificate for specialty pharmacy — the governance artifact becomes a risk differentiation tool.

The triad stop-loss package

An employer who presents their stop-loss carrier with three governance artifacts — Cadence (specialty pharmacy continuation is governed), Curated (BH episodes are routed to quality programs with measured outcomes), and Caliber (high-cost claims are independently verified before payment) — is the best-documented risk in the market. No other employer can produce this package. The combination creates negotiating power that no single product provides alone.

c
10 — The Triad Economics

Three products. One client. One relationship.

The cost of acquiring a self-funded employer client is $20-50K (sales cycle, consultant relationships, pilot, legal review). That cost is incurred once. Cross-selling the second and third products to the same client is near zero incremental acquisition cost.

ConfigurationRevenue per Employer (Year 2)CAC
Cadence alone~$300K (Year 2 / ~5K governed specialty members at $5 PMPM)$20-50K
Curated alone~$775K (Year 2 / 10K lives)$20-50K
Caliber alone~$700K (Year 2 / 15K lives)$20-50K
Triad (all three)~$1.8M (same employer, sizes vary by product)$20-50K (once)

At 10 employer clients on the full triad: $18M+ in annual revenue from a shared sales motion, shared buyer relationship, and shared governance thesis. LTV per client triples while CAC stays flat. That's the platform economics that makes the triad a fundamentally different business than three separate companies.

Cadence revenue is priced per governed specialty member (PMPM), not per total employee. A 15,000-employee employer may have 2,000-5,000 governed specialty members depending on plan design and formulary. Curated and Caliber are priced per employee (PEPM). The triad total varies with employer size and specialty population.

Total PEPM exposure: For a 15,000-employee employer, maximum annual governance spend across all three products: approximately $1.2-1.8M before any savings materialize. This is transparent. Hiding the total and letting the buyer discover it is a trust destroyer.

Governance Portfolio

Instead of three separate certificates, offer a unified Governance Portfolio — one document, three sections, one risk profile. The stop-loss carrier sees a single artifact covering specialty pharmacy continuation, BH episode outcomes, and high-cost claims verification. The employer presents one story. The consultant recommends one vendor relationship.

Recommended pilot sequencing

Lead with Caliber. It has the simplest value proposition ("we verify your claims before you pay"), the fastest ROI demonstration (first Billing Governance Certificate at 90 days), and the least behavioral change required from the employer — they're already holding claims. Caliber opens the door. Cadence and Curated walk through it.

Sequence: Caliber pilot (90 days) → demonstrate value → introduce Cadence for specialty pharmacy (same client, same renewal conversation) → introduce Curated for BH episodes (same client, different clinical category). By month 12, the employer has three governance layers and a Governance Portfolio for their stop-loss renewal.

c
11 — The Caliber Baseline Study

The first pilot is the first evidence.

Cadence has validated its methodology across 65,234 patients in three independent cohorts, including the DURA study (30,734 patients). Caliber has industry citations. The gap is known. The first pilot closes it.

Study design

Single self-funded employer. 300-400 high-cost claims above $25K. Full BGS v1.0 methodology applied. 90-day verification cycle. Every claim reviewed across all seven checks.

Primary endpoints

Expected findings

Based on industry sources: 4-6% of high-cost claims will contain at least one billing inaccuracy. DURVAL and DUPCHECK will produce the largest per-finding dollar amounts. CODEVAL will produce the highest volume. Total prevented overpayment will exceed $400K on $21M in reviewed claims.

If the discrepancy rate is below 2%, the prevented-overpayment share model is weak and the PEPM must carry the economics alone. If above 6%, the thesis is stronger than projected and pricing can increase.

Deliverable

The first Billing Governance Certificate. The study results. A publishable summary suitable for benefits industry publications (Benefits Quarterly, ISCEBS, HFMA). This becomes Caliber's Cohort 1 — the evidence anchor that every subsequent conversation references.

c
12 — Strategic Trajectory

The path from employer-direct to platform integration.

  1. Employer-direct (now). Sign 3-5 self-funded employers through benefits consultants. Produce the first Billing Governance Certificates. Establish the Caliber Baseline Study evidence base. Revenue: $2-3.5M.
  2. Data credibility (year 2-3). Provider billing accuracy scores across 50+ facilities. Category-level discrepancy benchmarks. TPA accuracy comparison data. Publish findings. The dataset becomes the calling card.
  3. TPA partnership (year 3-4). A TPA offers Caliber as a built-in verification layer for its self-funded clients. White-label or co-branded. The TPA gets a fiduciary compliance tool. Caliber gets distribution across the TPA's employer book.
  4. Stop-loss integration (year 4-5). Stop-loss carriers require or incentivize the Billing Governance Certificate as a condition of renewal. The certificate becomes an underwriting artifact, not a voluntary purchase. Caliber shifts from employer-sold to carrier-required.
  5. Platform convergence. Caliber + Cadence + Curated offer a unified Governance Portfolio. One contract, one relationship, three governance layers. The employer who uses all three presents the most complete risk profile in the self-funded market. The platform creates negotiating power that no single product provides alone.

What not to do: Don't position the TPA partnership or stop-loss integration in any employer-facing materials. The employer is the buyer today. Signaling TPA or carrier ambitions confuses the current sale. The partnership conversation happens when the data compels it.

c
13 — Stress Test

What could kill this.

"TPAs will block you from accessing their claims data."
The employer owns the data. Under ERISA, the plan sponsor has the right to access all claims data. The TPA is a service provider to the employer. If the employer directs the TPA to provide a claims extract for independent review, the TPA complies. Some TPAs will resist because Caliber may reveal their editing failures. That resistance is evidence of the problem, not a reason to stop solving it.
SURVIVES — employer data rights are clear under ERISA
"4-6% inaccuracy seems high. What if it's 1%?"
At 1% dollar-weighted inaccuracy on $21M in reviewed claims, total discrepancy is $210K. Prevented-overpayment share at 17.5%: $36,750. Total revenue: $666,750 ($630K PEPM + $36.75K share) against $350K cost. The model is still margin-positive at 1%. Below 0.5%, the PEPM alone carries the economics, which it does at current pricing. The Caliber Baseline Study (Section 11) will establish the actual rate in the first 90 days.
SURVIVES — PEPM provides floor; discrepancy share is upside
"What if TPAs add independent verification themselves?"
If TPAs add independent verification, they've validated the thesis. But "independent" means independent. A TPA verifying its own claims processing is not independent regardless of what they call it. The employer needs a third party. That's the structural requirement. A TPA offering "independent review" has the same conflict as a company auditing its own financials. The Big Four exist for a reason.
SURVIVES — independence is structural, not a feature
"Cotiviti or Optum could enter the employer market."
They could. But both are owned by entities with health plan relationships. Optum is UHG. Cotiviti was acquired by Verscend (now part of Cotiviti). Their revenue comes from health plans. Entering the employer market to verify claims that their health plan clients processed creates a channel conflict. The employer market is structurally unattractive to companies whose primary revenue depends on health plan relationships.
OPEN — possible but structurally unlikely. Monitor.
"You have no evidence base."
Correct. Unlike Cadence (65,234 patients, three cohorts), Caliber has no proprietary data yet. The industry evidence base (OIG 7.4% improper payment rate, AHLA 3-8%, MGMA 5-8% submission error rate) is well-documented but not measured by Caliber's methodology. The first pilot — the Caliber Baseline Study (Section 11) — is designed to produce the proprietary evidence base: discrepancy rate by check type, dollar-weighted accuracy, and provider-level scores across 300-400 high-cost claims. The first Billing Governance Certificate is Caliber's Cohort 1.
OPEN — first pilot must produce the evidence. Pre-revenue risk.
"Solo founder with a day job."
Same answer as Cadence and Curated. The day job provides current access to claims data, TPA relationships, and underwriting economics. The plan is full-time transition after market fit is demonstrated. The triad structure (three products, one founder, shared buyer) is either a strength (unified vision, cross-sell economics) or a liability (one person, three companies). The first client for any of the three products validates the founder thesis.
OPEN — execution risk until first contract
"What if Caliber flags a claim incorrectly and the employer denies payment for legitimate care?"
Caliber is advisory-only. We never issue payment instructions. The employer and TPA make the payment decision. The 10-business-day dispute window exists for exactly this scenario: the employer reviews, the TPA reviews, and if either disagrees with a finding, an independent third-party reviewer evaluates it. An incorrect flag that gets overturned costs Caliber revenue (no prevented-overpayment share on overturned findings) and costs the employer nothing. The system penalizes Caliber for being wrong, not the employer.
SURVIVES — advisory-only structure + dispute resolution protects the employer
"TPAs will passively resist by delaying the claims extract or making it incomplete."
Possible. Some TPAs will treat Caliber as an inconvenience. The mitigation is contractual: the employer's agreement with the TPA specifies the extract format, frequency, and completeness requirements. Under ERISA, the plan sponsor has the right to this data. A TPA that delays or provides incomplete data is failing its service obligation to the employer. In practice, TPAs that resist are revealing something about their confidence in their own editing quality. That resistance is a data point, not a reason to stop.
SURVIVES — employer data rights are contractual and ERISA-protected
"You can't scale. Each claim takes 30-60 minutes to verify. At 20 clients, you need 10+ full-time reviewers."
At 350 Tier 1 claims per employer per year, 20 employers generate 7,000 claims. At 45 minutes average, that is 5,250 reviewer-hours, or approximately 2.5 FTEs. Tier 2 claims at 20 minutes add ~1 FTE. Total reviewer need at 20 clients: 3-4 FTEs. The reviewer pool (CPC/CCS/RHIA-credentialed professionals) is large — AAPC has 200,000+ certified members. Caliber can contract with independent reviewers nationally, similar to how Cadence contracts with external clinical reviewers. The bottleneck is quality assurance, not capacity.
SURVIVES — reviewer pool is large, FTE requirement is manageable
c
14 — What We Don't Know

Honest gaps.

  1. The actual discrepancy rate. Industry estimates say 3-10%. The real number for the self-funded employer market, at the claim-level granularity Caliber operates on, is unknown until the first pilot.
  2. Whether TPAs will cooperate smoothly. Employers have the legal right to the data. Whether TPAs make it easy or hard is an operational question with no universal answer.
  3. Whether the payment-hold window is long enough. 10-business-day turnaround for Tier 1 claims fits within most hold windows. Some TPAs hold for only 14 calendar days. Turnaround may need to compress to 5-7 business days for shorter hold windows.
  4. Whether stop-loss carriers will recognize the Billing Governance Certificate. The thesis is sound. The carrier conversations haven't happened yet.
  5. Whether the prevented-overpayment share model creates misaligned incentives. If Caliber earns more when more discrepancies are found, does that create incentive to flag inaccuracies that aren't real? Mitigation: external reviewers, published methodology, sealed artifact, and the employer can dispute any finding.
  6. Reviewer capacity at scale. Each Tier 1 claim takes 30-60 minutes to verify. 350 claims per year per employer at 45 minutes average = ~263 reviewer-hours = ~0.13 FTE. At 20 employers: ~2.5 FTE for Tier 1, plus ~1 FTE for Tier 2. Total: 3-4 FTE. The reviewer pool (CPC/CCS/RHIA credentialed, 200,000+ AAPC members) is large. The bottleneck is quality assurance, not capacity.
c
15 — Glossary

Terms.

TermDefinition
BGSBilling Governance Standard. The published, versioned methodology for verification cycles.
Billing Governance CertificateThe quarterly deliverable. Documents verification results, discrepancy rates, prevented overpayments, and provider accuracy scores.
Verification Rate% of reviewed claims confirmed accurate. Analogous to Cadence's DAR.
Discrepancy Rate% of reviewed claims with identified inaccuracies. Analogous to Cadence's RIR.
Prevented OverpaymentDollar amount of billing discrepancies caught before payment. Not modeled — measured.
Payment-Hold WindowThe 14-60 day period during which TPAs hold high-cost claims before releasing payment. Caliber operates within this window.
EscalateClaim determination requiring employer/TPA decision. Caliber documents findings; the employer decides payment action. Advisory-only.
Caliber Baseline StudyFirst-pilot evidence study. 300-400 claims, full BGS methodology. Produces Caliber's Cohort 1 evidence base.
Governance PortfolioUnified document combining Cadence, Curated, and Caliber governance certificates for stop-loss and board presentation.
CODEVALCoding accuracy verification check.
DUPCHECKDuplicate billing detection check.
RATEVALContracted rate compliance verification.
DURVALLength-of-stay / duration verification.
CREDVALProvider credential level verification.
SVCVALService delivery verification.
BUNDLEVALBundle compliance verification.