Price-Checked Plans

Your health plan has 500,000 price tags. You’ve never seen one.

Every insurance network negotiates its own price for every service with every provider. Under a high deductible, you pay those negotiated prices until you hit your cap — so which network’s price tags you’re carrying matters as much as your premium.

What you’re shown

1 number

the monthly premium

What’s underneath

1.4 billion

negotiated prices, published by law and read by almost nobody.

Insurers must publish every price. The files are so big, nobody reads them. We read them.

Since 2022, federal transparency rules force every insurer to publish every negotiated rate. The catch: they’re terabyte-scale machine files, refreshed monthly — functionally unreadable on purpose. We built the pipeline that reads them.

1.4B+

prices ingested

Every negotiated rate we can read, refreshed monthly from insurer files.

996/1,059

Texas plans matched

Each one tied to its network's real rates — 94% of the marketplace.

300

shoppable services

The basket we price on every network — scans, labs, visits, procedures.

Checked against CMS’s own network records and live provider directories. Figures from the transparency pipeline, July 2026.

Same MRI. Same city. Three networks. Three prices.

MRI, lumbar spine, without contrast · same metro

A lower-priced networkwell below average$410
An average networkabout average$690
A higher-priced networkfar above average$2,150

Illustrative of the spread we find in the rate files. If you’re under your deductible, the difference is yours to pay.

It’s not one service — networks are systematically cheap or expensive across the board. Which means a network can be graded.

So we rate every network we can read. Low, medium or high.

We compare what each network pays for the same common services, at the same kinds of providers, against the Texas average. That’s the Wellward Rate Grade, and every plan inherits its network’s. A high rating is the one to watch — it means the network pays more, so your deductible buys less care.

Low

Lower prices than most

This network pays doctors less than the Texas average, so money you spend before your deductible goes further.

Medium

About average

Roughly what other Texas networks pay for the same care.

High

Higher prices than most

This network pays doctors more than the Texas average, so the same deductible buys less care.

This compares what each network pays doctors and outpatient providers in Texas. It doesn't cover hospital stays, dental or vision — insurers don't publish enough comparable data on those. And it isn't what you'll pay: your deductible, coinsurance and premium sit on top of these prices and usually matter more.

How far does a $6,000 deductible actually go?

Same deductible, same dollars — but on a lower-priced network those dollars buy far more care before you hit your cap. This is the part of a plan nobody prices, and it’s the difference between a deductible that gets you treated and one that evaporates.

$6,000 of deductible buys…

On a lower-priced network~14 services

On a higher-priced network~5 services

Illustrative until the index run finalizes.

Every network we rate in Texas

Network (issuer)	Plans	Rate data	Prices
Blue Advantage HMOBCBSTX	636	Payer-stated (plan-name grain), CMS-corroborated · 92% basket	Medium
MyBlue Health HMOBCBSTX · 11-county	71	Payer-stated, CMS-corroborated · 82% basket	Medium
Texas Provider NetworkUnitedHealthcare exchange	29	Payer-stated · 85–100% basket	Not rated
UHC Sanitasnarrow — provider list smaller than the parent network	11	Rates inferred from parent network — flagged	Not rated
Oscar HMO / EPOOscar Health	78 / 20	CMS-corroborated · 93% basket	Not rated
AmbetterSuperior / Centene	57	CMS-corroborated · 98% basket	Medium
WellpointWellpoint Insurance Company	28	Payer-stated at plan grain — our strongest tie · 98% basket	Medium
Molina MarketplaceMolina	28	CMS-corroborated · 99% basket	Low
CHRISTUSCHRISTUS Health Plan	23	CMS-corroborated · 98% basket	High
Baylor Scott & WhiteBSW Health Plan	10	CMS-corroborated · 98% basket	High
Moda, CHC, Sendero, othersinsufficient published data	68	Files missing or too thin to grade	Not rated

When an insurer’s files are missing or too broken to judge, we say Not rated — we never guess, and we never quietly call it average. Ratings are statewide, computed July 2026; how we work each one out is in our methodology.

Two plans can protect you equally. Only one wastes your deductible.

The Rate Grade is the tiebreaker inside your Short List: when two plans have similar Floors and MAEs, the lower-priced network means every pre-deductible dollar buys more care. It’s also your superpower after you enroll — pair the grade with our free Price Lookup to find the cheap provider inside your network.

See my matches — with ratings →

Go deeper

The full story, for the curious

We Read the Price Tags Inside Every Texas Health Plan
Coming soon
The Same MRI Costs 5× More Across Town. On the Same Insurance.
Coming soon
Why We Show Our Work
Coming soon

Rate data: insurer Transparency-in-Coverage files, refreshed monthly; attribution validated against the CMS QHP Network PUF and payer provider directories. Full methodology in The Evidence.