PROFILE | June 2026
Elliot Dear, Counsel — New York Bar, Admitted 2005, Good Standing
By Elliot Dear, Counsel
When a physician practice brings in counsel for an out-of-network payment dispute, it stops arguing its own bill and starts being represented by a lawyer. For the practices that work with Elliot Dear, that lawyer is a New York attorney, registration #4329546, admitted to the New York bar in 2005 and in good standing. This page sets out what the word counsel means in that relationship, and what it does not.
Counsel Represents the Practice
The client is the practice: the plastic and reconstructive surgeon, the emergency physician group, the oral and maxillofacial surgeon who treated a patient without a network contract. Elliot Dear takes on one job for that practice, the Independent Dispute Resolution submission on a claim the insurer underpaid. He reviews it and signs it under his own bar number. The office keeps its own billing staff and its own way of running the front desk; counsel takes none of that over.
Who the Insurer Deals With
Once a dispute is filed, the insurer is no longer answering a billing clerk or a portal message. It is answering a submission signed by Elliot Dear, a licensed New York attorney. Questions about the claim, the plan or the file go to the person whose name is on the filing. That shifts the exchange, because a lawyer’s submission is read as a legal document, and the lawyer answers for every statement in it.
Who the IDR Entity Deals With
New York State IDR is administered by the Department of Financial Services, and each dispute goes to an independent reviewer. On the practice’s side, that reviewer reads a package built from the EOB, the operative note and the billed charges, with an argument tying them to the benchmark New York law names, the FAIR Health 80th percentile. Elliot Dear is the author of that package and the person accountable for it. The reviewer is not sorting through a raw billing export; it is reading a file put together by counsel.
What Counsel Does Not Mean
Counsel here does not mean a retainer, a thick engagement letter or an onboarding project. Claims Assassins, the practice Elliot Dear founded in 2018, works on a 10% contingency on the improvement, with no upfront fee and no contracts. After a determination, counsel sends the payment demand to the insurer, and the determination carries a 30-day payment deadline.
Starting With One Claim
A practice that wants to see representation before committing to anything can send one claim and its EOB for a free review. Elliot Dear will read it, sort the plan, and say plainly whether the claim belongs in the New York process or sits outside it.