UnitedHealthcare will eliminate prior authorization requirements for 30% of healthcare services that currently require insurer approval, the company said, with the changes set to take effect by the end of 2026.
The insurer will drop pre-approval requirements for select outpatient surgeries, echocardiograms, and certain therapies by end of 2026
Stephen Maturen / Getty Images
UnitedHealthcare will eliminate prior authorization requirements for 30% of healthcare services that currently require insurer approval, the company said, with the changes set to take effect by the end of 2026.
Among the services affected are echocardiograms and other diagnostic tests, select outpatient surgeries, chiropractic care, and outpatient therapy, the company said. A full list will be published on UHCProvider.com before the changes take effect.
Pre-authorization currently touches roughly 2% of UnitedHealthcare's total claims — a small share that still amounts to millions of reviews annually. The insurer says it grants approval on about 92% of those requests, with a typical turnaround of under 24 hours.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Tim Noel said the announcement reflects how technology backed by artificial intelligence can change healthcare's financial system. The shift allows the company to flag outlier providers through data analysis and address concerns with them one-on-one, rather than applying blanket pre-approval requirements across entire procedure categories, he told The Wall Street Journal. "My hope is that patients and providers experience something a lot different, a lot less abrasive," Noel said. He added that AI is not used to make decisions to deny care.
Submission requirements for prior authorizations are also being unified across UnitedHealthcare's business segments — spanning Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-sponsored plans — the company said. More than 70% of its prior authorizations will be part of a new standardized submission process by year-end, UnitedHealthcare said.
The insurer has taken several related steps in recent months. On April 20, UnitedHealthcare said it would exempt many rural care providers from prior authorization requirements and accelerate payments to select rural hospitals, with the program expanding to about 1,500 rural hospitals by fall 2026. Earlier, the company expanded a "gold card" program that allows physician groups who follow evidence-based care guidelines to bypass some authorization requirements.
UnitedHealthcare is not alone in scaling back pre-approval requirements — Aetna, a unit of CVS Health $CVS, and Cigna $CI Group have pursued comparable reductions, according to The Wall Street Journal. Across the industry, trade groups estimate that pre-authorizations have fallen by 11% since a coordinated reform push began in 2025, though provider organizations representing hospitals and physicians report that the practical effect on their administrative burden has been modest, The Journal said.
UnitedHealthcare is a unit of UnitedHealth $UNH Group, which reported first-quarter 2026 results that beat Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year profit forecast. The company has also undertaken a third-party review of its core business practices, publishing an initial set of reports in December, and pledged to eliminate and rebate any profits from its individual ACA offerings in 2026.
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