About
About MedAdvocate
MedAdvocate is a tool for reading, checking, and disputing medical bills. It was built on a simple observation: medical bills are hard to understand by design, errors in them are common, and most people pay without ever checking. This page explains who is behind the project and why it exists.
Who is behind MedAdvocate
MedAdvocate is built by Dave Anspaugh, its founder and sole builder. Every part of it, from the bill analysis in the app to the guides on this site, is the work of one person who believes patients deserve a fair shot at understanding what they are charged. MedAdvocate is operated by MedAdvocate, LLC.
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Why MedAdvocate exists
Medical billing is one of the few areas where people routinely pay a bill they cannot read, from a provider they cannot easily question, for an amount that is rarely the real price. Reviews of hospital bills commonly turn up errors, from duplicate charges to services never received to charges coded at the wrong level.
MedAdvocate exists to put the tools to catch those errors in the hands of the person who gets the bill. The app does one thing well: you photograph an itemized bill, it checks each line against the mistakes that hide on medical statements, and it flags what is worth questioning. It does not promise a specific result. It gives you a clear, reviewable read of your own bill and helps you act on it.
What this site offers
MedAdvocate is two things, a set of free resources and a paid service, and you are welcome to use only the free part.
- Free guides and tools. This site hosts a growing library of guides on how to read a hospital bill, dispute a charge, handle collections, understand the No Surprises Act, and more. Each one includes a free interactive tool, such as a dispute letter generator, an out of pocket estimator, or a bill decoder. Nothing you enter into the tools on this site leaves your device.
- The app. For a flat 29 dollars, the MedAdvocate app analyzes your itemized bill, writes a dispute letter based on what it finds, and mails it by certified mail on your behalf. A PDF copy of the letter is emailed to you as well. There is no percentage of savings and no subscription. It is available on iOS and Android.
Whether you do it yourself with the free guides or hand the writing and mailing to the app, the goal is the same: pay what you actually owe, not what a mistake says you owe.