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Comparison
Does a platform pay more than your own contract?
Whether a billing platform pays more than your own contract depends on the payer. These are reported 90837 rates for the same payer through each route, from 447 reports.
Reported 90837 by payer and route
| Payer | Direct contract | Headway | Alma | Grow Therapy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BCBS | $134 (76) | $112 (30) | — | $75 (4) |
| Aetna | $116 (42) | $130 (33) | $121 (9) | $95 (4) |
| Optum / UHC | $116 (39) | $120 (12) | $114 (12) | $93 (3) |
| Cigna | $102 (29) | $95 (13) | $102 (7) | $72 (4) |
| Kaiser | $130 (6) | — | — | $96 (5) |
Headway reports run higher than direct-contract reports for Aetna and Optum/UHC, and lower for BCBS and Cigna. That split is why the question never settles in a comment thread: both answers are true, and which one a clinician has seen depends on which payer they bill.
Read this as a comparison of samples, not of contracts. Each cell is a different group of clinicians in a different mix of states, so part of every gap is geography rather than the route. Counts are in brackets; a cell needs 3 reports to appear at all, and the smallest ones move the most when a single report lands. What a platform absorbs in billing, credentialing and clawbacks is not priced in here either.
Limitations
These figures have three limitations. First, every rate is self-reported and unverified. Second, the sample is self-selected: 14% of all reports come from Georgia, where the launch discussion reached furthest. Third, license is missing on 53 of 628 rows. Nevertheless, they are the only public per-route figures available to a therapist weighing an offer, and every added report narrows the ranges above. How this data is collected and checked.