Video summary
In this episode of the Franchise Wizards podcast, host Sheila talks with Adam Phillips, CEO of American Business Systems (ABS), and Jason Pettit, the company’s chief growth officer, about why medical practices struggle with billing, how ABS business owners help, and what the business looks like for the entrepreneurs who run it.
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Key takeaways
- Adam and Jason say 20 to 30% of filed medical claims in the US are rejected, and they see denials rising as insurance companies use their own AI tools to find reasons not to pay. They say ABS business owners operate at less than a 2% claim rejection rate.
- ABS is a business opportunity, not a franchise: owners use their own business name, can sign clients anywhere in the US, and pay no royalties.
- The episode discusses a $35,000 one-time investment with a 30-day money-back guarantee that lets new owners finish the full training before deciding.
- AI tools speed up billing, but Adam and Jason argue the work still needs a “human in the loop” to check the results.
The problem: small practices, rising denials
Adam’s parents founded ABS in 1994 after his mother began doing claims for a friend who owned a durable medical equipment business. Small private practices rarely have dedicated billers, so claims get denied over wrong codes or patient details and often sit unworked. Jason says the dynamic has not changed in 30 years because insurers are driven by profitability, and both say denials are getting worse now that payers use AI to scrutinize claims.
How ABS owners help practices
Jason describes two levers: cutting the claim rejection rate, and raising what each approved claim pays. On the second, ABS partners with a company of certified coders who help doctors choose optimal codes and supply the documentation each procedure requires, so claims are not underpaid.
A business opportunity, not a franchise
Owners operate under their own business name, face no territory restrictions, pay no royalties, and file no financial reports with ABS. In the episode, Adam describes a $35,000 one-time investment and a 30-day money-back guarantee that lets new owners complete the full training before deciding whether to continue. He also explains that ABS earns a revenue share from the software subscription fees doctors pay ABS’s software partners, which he says keeps the company invested in helping owners sign clients.
AI and the human in the loop
Asked whether AI will take over the industry, Adam says no for the foreseeable future. The tools suggest codes and speed up the work, and ABS’s primary software partner builds them into its platform, but they still make confident mistakes, so a person reviews the output. Jason compares it to autopilot: the plane largely flies itself, but everyone still wants pilots in the cockpit.
Owners, earnings, and getting clients
Backgrounds vary widely, though Jason says people with sales, marketing, or healthcare experience tend to grow fastest. Adam describes typical fees of 5 to 9% of collections and says a single-doctor client can represent roughly $30,000 to $50,000 a year depending on specialty and volume, offered as illustration, not a guarantee. He says owners who follow the marketing plan full-time often sign their first client in 30 to 90 days, using about a dozen taught methods built around networking, referrals, and partnerships with local medical sales reps. Day to day, he says a claim takes about two minutes to process, and owners who want to scale can hire billers through ABS’s staffing partner. The episode closes with owner stories shared as individual examples: Deb’s eight clients in her first year, a retired corporate worker in Arizona who built a small lifestyle business around two podiatry clients, and a two-partner business that grew past 400 clients, which Jason stresses is far from typical.