Hello
I am Leigh J. Mack, MD, PhD. I founded Patient Overwatch to help people across the United States lower healthcare bills by not only identifying coding and billing mistakes but also identifying and negotiating overcharges by greedy healthcare systems. In 2023, over 500,000 people filed for bankruptcy due to healthcare bills. I started Patient Overwatch to help people who have been needlessly overcharged for healthcare.
Our Story
Our story starts with the US Healthcare system as one of the most inefficient industries in the world. Our Founder, Leigh J. Mack, MD, PhD worked in this system as a Corporate Physician Advisor for a multi-state healthcare system. His job centered around capturing revenue for "inpatient" hospital stays. This generated more revenue for the healthcare system because the patients were categorized as "inpatient" versus "observation" levels of care. This categorization was not necessarily related to the intensity of care but rather guidelines published by Hearst Corporation (MCG) and agreed to by commercial payors.
After experiencing our healthcare system as a revenue asset, Dr. Mack felt the system needed to be fixed. However, the healthcare system has whole industries built on this revenue system so fixing it organically would be next to impossible. So Patient Overwatch was created to right the wrongs of this system, a 21st-
century Robin Hood, to ethically and legally challenge the validity of healthcare bills.
​​
​
Did you know:
​
Total U.S. Healthcare Spending: Expected to reach approximately $6 trillion by 2028, with individual out-of-pocket costs representing a significant portion. For 2025, we’ll conservatively estimate individual out-of-pocket medical expenses at around $500 billion.​
​​
Medical debt remains one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcies in the U.S. An estimated 66.5% of all bankruptcies are tied to medical bills, affecting over 500,000 American families annually. This figure reflects the financial toll of healthcare costs, which are not only high but often come with unexpected billing complexities that overwhelm patients. Despite insurance coverage, significant out-of-pocket costs, emergency visits, and high deductibles contribute to this widespread issue​.
​​
Furthermore, about 17% of adults with health-related debt have either declared bankruptcy or faced losing their homes due to medical expenses. Many of these bankruptcies result from one-time medical events, such as emergency procedures, which patients could not anticipate or budget for ahead of time​
​​​
The prevalence of medical bankruptcies highlights the need for auditing services that can help identify billing errors and negotiate costs, which could prevent financial crises for affected individuals.
​