For providers in the United States, January means peak respiratory virus season: Flu, COVID-19, RSV, and more. But contract-based telehealth providers deal with another recurring issue every January: Taxes.
That’s because the IRS requires all 1099 forms to be completed and sent to contractors by January 31. This turns an already-busy month handling an influx in care requests to a race for accounting and finance teams to file 1099-NEC forms on time and correctly.
What a successful 1099 filing process looks like
One of the biggest questions we receive from our customers? Whether or not they need a 1099 form in the first place. If you’ve paid a contractor more than $600, either directly or indirectly, then you need a 1099 form. That means any provider that has billed for telehealth services on your platform needs a 1099 form.
A typical 1099 filing process goes like this:
- You request a W9 form from the provider.
- Once the form is completed and returned, you verify their TIN (SSN or EIN) with the IRS’ TIN matching program.
- From there, you have to dig into your payment records to figure out the total amount of all payments sent during the calendar year to that provider.
- Then, you can complete the 1099-NEC form.
- Send one copy to the IRS, one to your provider, and keep one for your records.
This process takes a lot of time and energy if you’re trying to pull this information from multiple systems or spreadsheets. Hopefully, both you and the provider have filled out all of the information correctly.
We all make mistakes, but these ones can cost you from $60 to $330 per form in 2025, according to the IRS. You need to make sure you have accurate information from every provider and can get a complete picture of payment information quickly.
For a massive telehealth company like Teladoc, which has over 7,000 providers, doing this manually is a headache waiting to happen. Trying to find all of this information for every provider—all in the few short weeks between end-of-year closing and the IRS deadline—means your administrative team can’t focus on their day-to-day tasks.
Why telehealth providers choose Wingspan for tax compliance
A New York-based telehealth startup chose Wingspan after their explosive growth—building their contractor provider pool to over 10,000 mental health providers—meant manually filing 1099s wasn’t just hectic, it was impossible. “In the past, we’d have to manually upload a providers’ W-9 and TIN information which could take more than a week of my time,” says their accounts payable manager.
“I’ve been in AP for over 10 years and filing 1099 forms for a long time, Wingspan is by far the easiest process I’ve ever come across.” - Accounts Payable Manager at a fast-growing telehealth startup
Given the growth of its provider network, automation was especially important given the time it took to manually create, reconcile, file and deliver forms to thousands of providers. They partnered with Wingspan to turn around 1099 forms instantaneously instead of waiting days or weeks for the right information. “I’ve been in AP for over 10 years and filing 1099 forms for a long time, Wingspan is by far the easiest process I’ve ever come across,” he says. “We don’t need all-hands on deck anymore now that we’ve got Wingspan.”
1099 filing doesn’t have to be complicated. We’ve pulled together everything telehealth companies need to know about the 1099 process so you can be prepared for this year’s tax season. Download our free guide to 1099 filing > Everything You Need To Know About 1099 Filing This Tax Season
How to simplify your tax season as a telehealth provider
Instead of manually gathering all of this information thousands of times for your contractors, you need to automate the process. Purpose-built tooling like Wingspan offers a single platform that automates the full contract-based provider lifecycle, making it easy to e-file your 1099s on time and without any errors.
With Wingspan, you can:
- Guarantee accurate W9 and credentialing information while you onboard a provider
- Automate the entire 1099 process, from creating forms to fixing errors
- Set up a Provider Help Desk to give providers a self-service portal where all of their questions can get answers
See how Wingspan can help simplify tax season for telehealth providers >
