Study examines insurer payment practices

A study in this week's Physicians Practice finds that Doctors are being hurt financially by slow claims processing by insurers. Researchers used data collected in the fourth quarter of 2005 by Athenahealth to grade insurers on how quickly they payed legitimate claims and how often they rejected. Humana responded the most quickly, averaging 29 days from the date of service to payment. Among commercial insurers, UnitedHealth was the slowest, taking on average 37.4 days to pay claims. Aetna rejected the most claims of any insurer, turning away 14 percent. UnitedHealth and WellPoint were both not far behind, with both rejecting more than 10 percent of claims.

- read this article from The New York Times

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