By Jason Nakka
Commercial insurance is supposed to pay more than Medicare. That is the whole reason a practice takes commercial patients in the first place.
For 64% of American practices, UnitedHealthcare pays less.
This map shows the share of practices inside each state whose UnitedHealthcare rates come in under Medicare. New Jersey is the worst of them at 85.8% of its practices, and Alaska is the best at 0.8%.
Every practice is scored only on the 50 codes it actually bills, weighted by how often it bills them, so a code sitting unused on somebody’s fee schedule never counts against them.
The part I keep coming back to is that this is one insurer operating in one country, and whether commercial insurance is a raise or a pay cut depends almost entirely on which side of a state line your office sits on.
From UnitedHealthcare’s published Transparency in Coverage files, April 2026.
See where your practice lands at www.PriceMedic.com