About Barley

Medicare should be straightforward. You receive care, Medicare pays its share, and you pay the rest. But the reality is far more complicated — and costly.

Medical billing errors are widespread — and costly. They're phantom charges for services never received, duplicate billing for the same procedure, and billing code mistakes that can turn an $800 bill into $8,500. CMS identified $28.8 billion in improper Medicare payments in FY2025 alone.

For Medicare beneficiaries, the impact is especially severe. $49 billion in medical debt remains on American credit reports, affecting 15 million Americans — and adults 65 and older bear a heavy share (CFPB, 2024). Not because they can't afford insurance, but because billing errors, observation status traps, surprise bills, and wrongful denials slip through unnoticed.

Most people don't dispute these errors. Not because they're correct, but because fighting a Medicare bill feels overwhelming. The Medicare appeals process has 5 levels. The deadlines are strict — 120 days for an initial appeal. And knowing where to start is nearly impossible.

Barley changes that.

We built Barley to be the Medicare billing advocate you need — a comprehensive Medicare billing platform with dozens of specialized tools that understands billing codes, insurance rules, Medicare regulations, and federal protections. We auto-detect your plan type, find the errors, explain them in plain English, and give you everything you need to fix them — from dispute letters that reference Medicare's own rules to an escalation engine that drafts your follow-up if your first appeal doesn't work.