New Leasing Arrangement UCCI/Principal

by Sarah Levin

 

United Concordia is infamous for their non-negotiable low fees and large network. However a new shared network agreement with Principal that took effect 11/1/2016 provides more options for accessing the United Concordia network while being paid rates that won’t put your practice out of business.

 

A major benefit of not contracting direct with UCCI is the potential for negotiations. So even if the initial recruitment schedule from Principal looks about par with UCCI, the Principal schedule has more room for improvement, while UCCI’s fee schedule will only be subject to the standard, minimal annual fee review.

 

If not contracting direct with UCCI, it is also important to take Assurant’s fee schedule into consideration, as they also have access to UCCI’s network. If Assurant’s initial proposal is higher than Principal, it would be more beneficial to contract with Assurant. However, if contracting with both Assurant AND Principal, it is important to opt out of UCCI’s network through the lower paying carrier – so there’s no possibility of UCCI’s claims being defaulted to the lower schedule.

 

It’s important to note that this agreement only grants access to UCCI’s AdvantagePLUS network, which does NOT include the ADDP Military network. If you would like access to this network, you might want to consider contracting direct with UCCI as an ADDP only provider.

 

If you are already contracted with UCCI and Principal/Assurant, we would explore the possibility of dropping UCCI and picking up their network through the highest paying network possible.