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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 653 reports.
Reported 90837 by payer and route
| Payer | Direct contract | Headway | Alma | Grow Therapy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BCBS | $134 (102) | $110 (42) | $127 (3) | $83 (6) |
| Aetna | $113 (64) | $130 (42) | $124 (14) | $95 (6) |
| Optum / UHC | $116 (60) | $119 (16) | $117 (16) | $93 (4) |
| Cigna | $100 (47) | $95 (17) | $102 (8) | $73 (5) |
| Kaiser | $116 (9) | — | — | $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. Differences may reflect geography, credentials, reporting periods, and contracts; this comparison cannot isolate the effect of 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. Fees, billing work, and payment risks allocated by each contract are not measured here.
Limitations
These figures have three limitations. First, every rate is self-reported and unverified. Second, the sample is self-selected: 13% of all reports come from California. Third, license is missing on 66 of 875 rows. These per-route reports describe this sample; additional reports can change the median and widen the range. How this data is collected and checked.