Forward-deployed engineers
The Passel Group deploys engineers into medical billing companies, law firms, clinics, and accounting practices. We watch how work really moves, automate what repeats, and don't stop until at least 20 hours a month are back. That commitment is in the contract.
The problem, drawn
Every operation runs on software that was never designed to work together. So the most experienced people on the floor spend their day moving the same information between systems by hand. We build the connections the software never shipped with.
A person in the middle of everything. Retyping, re-checking, copying between tabs. None of it is the job. All of it is the day.
The same systems, connected. Status pulls, posting, routing and reporting run on a schedule. Your team handles the exceptions and the judgement calls.
What is a forward-deployed engineer?
A forward-deployed engineer (FDE) is a software engineer who works inside your organization, in your systems and workflows, to build and ship working software rather than hand you a recommendation. Consultants deliver reports. Solutions engineers deliver demos. Forward-deployed engineers deliver a system running in production, and stay accountable for it.
The Passel Group is a forward-deployed engineering firm for medical billing companies, law firms, clinics, and accounting firms. Read the plain-language guide: what an FDE does, what one costs, and when to hire one →
Who we work with
We only work where the work repeats, the data can't be gotten wrong, and the hours can be counted. For each industry we've mapped the tasks, what they cost, and what we build instead. Use the pages the way we do: as the agenda for the first conversation.
Billing services and RCM firms live inside payer portals and PM systems that don't talk to each other. Most of a biller's day is moving the same information between them.
Lawyers bill a fraction of the hours they work. The rest goes to intake, retyping, chasing signatures, and fixing pre-bills. That's the part we take.
Independent practices spend as many hours at the desk as in the exam room. Prior auth, faxes, intake, and the inbox are where the day goes.
Bookkeeping and tax firms spend more hours getting the inputs than doing the accounting. Chasing, keying, categorizing the same vendors every month.
How it works
"Forward-deployed engineer" is a plain idea wearing a technical name: the engineer comes to you. Ours embed in your operation, your tools, your rules, and build until the result is running in your people's hands. Not a deck. Not a platform. A working result.
Three steps, written down before we start. Read the full engagement →
We deploy the Passel Observer, a lightweight workflow-telemetry agent, to every workstation. For two weeks it captures how work actually moves: which systems are in use, how often the same sequence recurs, how long each cycle takes. Not how the process is documented. How it happens.
You get the Gap Report: every repeated task across the team, what it costs in hours, which ones can be automated, and the order we'd do them in. It's yours whether or not we build anything.
Our engineer builds the automations inside the tools you already own. Done means running in production, in your team's hands, with at least 20 hours a month measurably back. If it isn't, we keep going at no additional cost.
What you get in week three
Two weeks of telemetry, distilled into one document: what repeats, how often, what it costs per person per month, and the order we'd automate it in. It's yours whether or not we build anything.
| Repeated task | Frequency | Per run | Hrs / mo | Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claim status checks | 52×/day | 4 min | 9.1 h | Build first |
| Eligibility verification | 38×/day | 6 min | 7.6 h | Build first |
| ERA payment posting | 9×/day | 22 min | 6.6 h | Build second |
| Denial worklist triage | daily | 35 min | 3.9 h | Build second |
| Client month-end report | monthly | 2.5 h | 2.5 h | Later |
| Prior auth tracking | 14×/day | 3 min | 1.9 h | Later |
What we commit to
of observation before we recommend anything
The Observer on every desk
back, minimum, or we keep working at no additional cost
Measured, per team
new tools your people have to learn
Built inside what you already own
flat fee for the audit, agreed in writing before we start
No hourly surprises
What we build
We hold no allegiance to any technology. The goal chooses the tools, never the other way around.
Repetitive, error-prone work put on rails. Portal pulls, posting, status checks, document routing, reporting. Inside the systems you already use, shaped around how you actually operate.
Applied to the work models are genuinely good at: first drafts, classification, triage, review. Nowhere it isn't. A person approves anything that touches money, a patient, or a client.
The connections your software never shipped with. APIs where they exist, careful browser automation where they don't, so your people stop being the integration layer.
Inside the tools you already use
Built for regulated work
Healthcare, legal, and financial records. Regulators, auditors, and clients who will read the work. We build as if one of them is looking, because in your world, one usually is.
The first weeks are spent in your operation: the queue, the inbox, the portal, the close. We learn how the work moves before we touch it. That's how we can promise an outcome.
Independently verified through Live Compliance: risk assessment, workforce training, documented policies. A BAA before any PHI moves. The same discipline for every client, in every industry.
Minimum-necessary access, de-identification wherever the work allows, and nothing used to train anyone's models. We name what could go wrong, and who would answer for it, before a single record moves.
The guarantee
We can promise outcomes because we build from inside, close enough to the work to be responsible for it.
You reach the outcome we agreed to in writing, or we keep working at no additional cost until you do.
Common questions
A forward-deployed engineer (FDE) is an engineer who deploys to you: working inside your organization, your tools, and your workflows instead of advising from the outside. The Passel Group's engineers embed in your operation and build until the agreed outcome is running in production.
A flat-fee engagement. We deploy the Passel Observer, a lightweight workflow-telemetry agent, to each workstation for two weeks to measure how work actually moves, then deliver a Gap Report: every repeated task, its time cost, and what we would automate first. We then build until at least 20 hours a month are saved. The full engagement, step by step.
Application-level activity signals: which systems are in use, how often the same sequence of steps recurs, and how long each cycle takes. Signals are aggregated at the team level, encrypted in transit and at rest, and run through our process-mining models to surface what repeats and what it costs. The telemetry scope, what the agent captures and what it never touches, is defined with you in writing before it is deployed to any workstation. For healthcare clients a Business Associate Agreement is signed first.
Twenty hours of staff time per month, measured against what the Observer found, that your team no longer spends on the automated work. It's the floor we commit to in writing, not the ceiling. If we haven't reached it, we keep working at no additional cost.
Medical billing and RCM companies, law firms and legal departments, clinics and medical practices, and accounting and CPA firms. If your team spends the day moving information between systems that don't talk to each other, we can probably help. See the industry pages.
Full-time, published 2026 data puts average FDE compensation around $238,000 a year, and most mid-sized businesses can't keep one busy. Our engagement is the practical alternative: one flat fee for the two-week audit, then a build scoped per workflow with the outcome in writing. We give the fee on the first call. More on cost.
Whatever you already run. In healthcare that's typically Kareo/Tebra, AdvancedMD, athenahealth, eClinicalWorks, NextGen, Epic, Availity, Waystar, and payer portals. In legal, Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther, NetDocuments, and iManage. In accounting, QuickBooks, Xero, Karbon, TaxDome, Lacerte, and Drake. Where a tool has no API, we build careful, monitored browser automation.
No. Most people who write to us arrive with a problem, not a plan: work that matters, data they can't get wrong, and a hunch there's a better way. That's enough. Tell us what's true and we'll tell you, plainly, what we'd put in writing.
Start here
Tell us what your team does all day. We'll come see it, tell you plainly what we'd put in writing, and if it's a fit, deploy the Observer within the week.
We read every message personally and usually reply within a business day.
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