Module 2: Consulting Discovery

Section in wizard: Consulting IQA Time to complete training: 10 minutes Time per discovery: 4–6 minutes

Why this section matters

Consulting is the section where you discover what the prospect is actually trying to solve. Credentialing and RCM are well-defined services with well-defined pricing. Consulting is where the messy, expensive, mission-critical problems live — payer contract negotiations, fee schedule reviews, operational redesigns, M&A diligence, compliance audits.

This section also has the highest revenue ceiling in the entire discovery. A single payer contract negotiation runs $3,000 per contract. A practice with 8 contracts that haven't been renegotiated in five years is leaving 6–15% on the table — sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Helping them recover that is a $24K consulting engagement that pays for itself in 30–60 days.

But consulting is also the section where reps under-sell most often. It feels like a "nice to have" next to the urgency of credentialing or the recurring revenue of RCM. It isn't. For the right prospect, consulting is the engagement that defines the relationship.

What we're really learning

What problems keep the practice owner up at night? The wizard's consultingNeeds checklist is a starting point, but the real signal is in which problem they bring up first when you go open-ended. Whatever they mention first is what's costing them the most or worrying them the most.
Have they ever had consulting help before? If yes, what did it cost and what did it deliver? This tells you their reference point for value. A practice that paid $40K to a healthcare consulting firm and got a 60-page report is conditioned to expect deliverables. A practice that's never used consultants is conditioned to expect free advice.
Is there a triggering event? Practices rarely engage consultants spontaneously. Something happened — a payer cut a fee schedule, a partner is buying out, a denial rate spiked, a competitor opened nearby, a regulator showed up. Find the trigger.

Listening cues

Strong buying signals:

"We haven't renegotiated our payer contracts in [3+ years]." This is almost always money on the table.
"We're thinking about adding a [new service line / second location / additional provider type]." Strategic decisions need consulting.
"Our denial rate has been climbing." This is operational consulting plus probable RCM upsell.
"We just had a partner exit / buy-in conversation." Practice valuation and structure work.
"We got a letter from [payer] about a fee schedule change." Time-sensitive negotiation.

Lukewarm signals:

General complaints about reimbursement without specific examples.
"We probably should look at our contracts at some point."
They're curious about consulting but can't name a problem.

Cold / disqualify signals:

"What does consulting cost?" with no context — they're collecting quotes, not buying.
They want consulting bundled in free with credentialing or RCM.
They've used 3+ consultants in 5 years — likely chronic dissatisfaction or an unfixable underlying issue.

Red flags / disqualify guidance

Step carefully when:

The "consulting" they want is therapy. Some practice owners want a sounding board, not a deliverable. We can do paid coaching engagements, but be clear that's what it is. If they expect a consultant to "help me figure out what to do" with no specific scope, the engagement will overrun and end badly.
The problem is fundamentally a personnel problem. "Our office manager is failing" isn't a consulting engagement, it's an HR/staffing engagement. Refer out or scope a hiring search instead.
They want consulting to validate a decision they've already made. If a prospect wants you to "do an analysis" that confirms they should buy that other practice or sign that contract, you're being hired as cover, not as expertise. Recognize it and either price it accordingly (high) or pass.
Compliance work outside our wheelhouse. OSHA audits, OCR investigations, OIG self-disclosures — these need attorneys and specialty compliance firms, not us. Refer out and stay in the relationship.
Litigation support. Never engage as an expert witness or litigation consultant without partner approval. The risk profile is different.

Common rep mistakes

Treating consulting as a checkbox. The wizard has a consultingNeeds multi-select. Reps tend to read the list, get a few checks, and move on. Instead, when they check "Contract Negotiations," stop and ask: which contracts, when did you last renegotiate, what's your annual revenue from those payers, what's your denial rate by payer? That five-minute follow-up is the difference between a $3K engagement and a $24K one.
Selling hours instead of outcomes. "$225 an hour" is what we charge. It's not why they should engage. The frame is "we typically recover 8–15% on payer contract renegotiations within 90 days" — outcome first, mechanics second.
Not surfacing the trigger event. Ask: "What made this top of mind right now?" Practices don't engage consultants on timing — they engage them when something forces the issue. The trigger is the closing lever.
Quoting the starter package as the answer. The $1,125 starter is a discovery vehicle, not a deliverable. It's how you scope a real engagement. Don't position it as "consulting in a box" — position it as "let's spend five hours together, agree on priorities, and then I'll come back with a real proposal."
Forgetting the contract negotiation flat fee. Reps default to the hourly rate. For payer contract work, the $3,000 flat fee per contract is almost always the better answer for the prospect and the better margin for us. Lead with it.

Sample dialogue

Opening the section — open-ended first

Rep: "Outside of credentialing and billing, what's keeping you up at night about the business side of the practice? Anything you've been wanting expert help on but haven't found the right partner for?"

This question is doing a lot of work. It's broad on purpose. You're trying to find what's hot.

Prospect: "Honestly, our reimbursement has been getting worse for years and I don't know what to do about it. We just signed whatever the payers sent us five years ago and I think we're underwater on at least a couple of contracts."

That's the trigger. Don't move on yet.

Probing on contract negotiation

Rep: "That's a really common issue and it's also a really fixable one. Walk me through what you have. How many contracts are we talking about, and when was the last time any of them were actually negotiated — not just renewed?"

Prospect: "We have probably eight or nine. Honestly I don't think any of them have been negotiated. We just got the standard offer and signed."

Rep: "Okay. For a practice your size, that's typically 8–15% of revenue you could be recovering, sometimes more if you're in a specialty where the gap between commercial rates and Medicare has widened. We do this work on a flat fee basis — $3,000 per contract — and we typically have a renegotiated rate within 60–90 days. On a $2M practice, even the low end of that recovery is $160K a year. The math on that is pretty self-evident."

You've named the cost of inaction, named the price, named the timeline, named the ROI. Now you stop talking.

Surfacing other consulting needs

Rep: "Anything else on the operational side? New service lines you've been considering, partnership structure questions, anything around the financials?"

Open invitation, no leading. If they have something, it'll come out.

Transition out

Rep: "Got it. I'm going to ask a few questions about your billing and revenue cycle setup next — and a lot of what we just talked about on contract negotiation actually ties into that, because the contracts you have determine how billing performs. Sometimes when we run the consulting and the RCM together we find issues much faster."

The transition is also the seed for bundling.

Wizard fields covered in this section

consultingNeeds, plus the notes field is critical here for capturing the trigger event and the specific consulting story.

What good looks like

A completed Consulting IQA where:

The consultingNeeds checklist reflects an actual conversation, not a clicked-through default
If contract negotiation is checked, you know how many contracts and when they were last renegotiated
The notes field captures the trigger event in the prospect's own words
You've identified at least one specific dollar number — current contract rate, denial rate, lost revenue — that the consulting work would impact