Studies consistently find that the majority of medical bills contain errors, and the government’s own audit puts billions in improper Medicare payments every year. But checking a bill means knowing coding rules, your insurance contract, and the law in your state. Pancho knows all three.
A hospital statement, an itemized bill, an Explanation of Benefits, a collection notice, a court summons, a dental or pharmacy bill. Take a photo with your phone or drop in a PDF, JPG, PNG, or WebP — up to five files at a time. If you have an insurance card, add that too; it unlocks a whole category of checks that can’t run without it.
Pancho reads the document, pulls out the provider, the balance, the dates, every line item and CPT code, and figures out what kind of document it is on its own. If you tagged it wrong, it corrects the tag. Bills can be filed under any member of your household.
The scan streams live — you see each check land as it completes, usually inside 15 to 30 seconds. It isn’t one question to an AI. Some checks are code comparing your codes against federal databases, some are date math against legal deadlines, and some are a model reading your line items for coding patterns.
Behind them sit the actual rules: CMS billing standards and NCCI edits, the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, the No Surprises Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, IRS §501(r), and the statute of limitations, small-claims limit, credit-reporting ban, and surprise-billing law for your specific state.
You land on a single number: what they’re asking for, and what’s left after the disputes. Then Pancho walks you through the findings one at a time — what the charge is, why it’s wrong, which rule it breaks, and what it’s worth to challenge. Skip any you don’t want to fight.
Every finding is written in plain English, not billing-department language. A duplicate charge is called a duplicate charge. An illegal surprise bill is called legally unenforceable, because that’s what the No Surprises Act makes it.
Findings get grouped by who needs to hear about them — the provider, your insurance company, or the collection agency — and Pancho drafts one letter per recipient citing every issue with its statute. There are fourteen letter types, from an itemized bill request to an FDCPA debt validation demand to a charity care application to a cease and desist.
You read the draft, edit it, then either copy the text or send it straight from your Gmail account if you’ve connected one. You send it, not us — every letter is user-reviewed before it leaves. Pancho then tracks the 30-day clock the provider has to respond.
Made-up hospital, made-up numbers, no real patient. Each charge below was picked because it maps to a check the scan actually runs, so this is the shape of a result — not a promise about what any particular bill will return.
One complete blood count, code 85025, appears on two lines for the same date of service with no modifier explaining a repeat draw. That is a duplicate charge, and it is the single most common billing error there is.
Category A · duplicate chargeYou went to an emergency room in your network. You do not get to pick the anesthesiologist, and federal law says you cannot be balance-billed for that. This charge is not a negotiation — it is legally unenforceable, and the insurer has to settle it with the provider directly.
Category B · No Surprises ActClosure supplies are already inside the payment for code 12002. Billing them separately is unbundling, and the federal edits that govern which codes may appear together say these two cannot.
Category A · NCCI unbundling editThe facility is in the nonprofit hospital database, which means the IRS requires it to run a financial assistance policy and to tell you about it. It did not. Depending on your household income, charity care may cover part or all of the remaining balance.
Category D · IRS §501(r)They asked for $4,970. Pancho flags $2,226 as disputable and a charity care application that could reach the rest. That number is what the rules say is challengeable — it is not money in your pocket, and what you actually get back depends on how the hospital and the insurer respond.
You read all three drafts, change anything you want, then copy them or send them from your own Gmail. You send them, not us. Pancho starts the 30-day clock the provider has to answer an itemized bill request and tells you when it runs out.
Every bill gets the same review a billing advocate would run — except it takes seconds and it doesn’t take a percentage of what you save.
The mistakes that live inside the codes themselves — the ones you'd need a certified coder to spot.
What your plan should have paid and didn't. These checks need your insurance card or benefits summary — without one they're skipped and Pancho tells you so.
Pure date math, no guesswork. Where this bill sits on the calendar decides most of what you can do about it.
Money you may not owe at all, and rules the other side has to follow.
Each list above is a sample, not the full set. What a given bill actually gets depends on what you uploaded — the insurance checks need an insurance card, and the collector checks need a collection letter.
Pancho classifies the collector as either an agent collecting on the hospital’s behalf or a buyer that purchased your debt outright, usually for pennies. That single fact changes the entire strategy.
Against a buyer, you negotiate — and Pancho calculates a defensible offer range from how old the debt is and who bought it. Against an agent, you go back to the hospital, because the hospital can still write the bill off entirely. Either way Pancho reads the collection letter for FDCPA violations first, since each one carries up to $1,000 in statutory damages and gives you leverage before you offer a dollar.
Upload the summons. Pancho pulls the court, the plaintiff, the amount, and — the part that matters — the date your answer is due, then escalates its warnings as that date closes in.
It drafts your Answer with the defenses that actually apply, including statute of limitations, lack of standing, and failure to validate the debt. It also drafts fee waivers, continuance motions, remote appearance requests, and motions to vacate if a default judgment was already entered. You print and file them — Pancho is not a law firm and cannot file anything for you.
Pancho writes them. You review, then copy the text or send from your own Gmail. Sending on your behalf — including certified mail with return receipt — is something we’re building, not something we do today.
Pancho is a software tool and billing advocacy advisor. It does not provide legal advice and is not a substitute for an attorney. When a case genuinely needs one, it tells you that instead of pretending otherwise.
What you see is what’s disputable based on the rules a charge breaks — not money already recovered. What you actually get back depends on how the provider responds.
Traditional medical billing advocates typically charge a percentage of what they save you. Pancho doesn’t touch your recovery — which is the whole reason it works on a $400 bill and not just a $40,000 one.
Pancho is opening to a small group first. Join the waitlist and we’ll reach out personally.
Join the waitlist