UnitedHealthcare denied your claim in Tennessee. Here is your deadline.
Put in the date on your UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company notice and get both federal deadlines as calendar dates.
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UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denied 576,337 of 2,608,244 in-network claims in Tennessee; every one of those denials had these same two dates on it. Across Tennessee as a whole the insurers in this file denied 17.5% of in-network claims, 3,896,627 of them, and 30,249 were appealed.
Or let the $29 Appeal Kit date each step and write the claim-file and external-review requests.
UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denied 22.1% of in-network claims in Tennessee, 576,337 claims out of 2,608,244.
Further down this page, after the free steps: the paid next step.
People type this number four ways and they all mean the figure above: UnitedHealthcare denial rate, United Healthcare denial rates, united healthcare claim denial rate, and UnitedHealthcare rejection rate, a rejection and a denial are the same event on your notice. The national UnitedHealthcare roll-up puts every reporting entity together.
United keeps denying my claims. I'm up to my ears in medical debt and I make close to nothing.
Those 576,337 denials are 14.8% of every in-network denial recorded in Tennessee in this release, which makes UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company the 3rd largest source of denials of the 5 insurers reporting there. Spread across its 16 plans in the state that is about 36,021 denials per plan. 504 internal appeals were filed against those 576,337 denials. Every one of those denials carried the same two dates the tool at the top of this page works out.
Two dates matter more than anything else on this page, and they run the same in Tennessee as everywhere else. You have 180 days from the date on your denial notice to file the internal appeal, and then 4 months from the final internal denial to ask for an independent external review. If waiting would seriously jeopardize your health you can ask for both to be expedited, decided in about 72 hours. Both timeframes are federal, not your insurer's choice, 29 CFR 2560.503-1 (PDF) and 45 CFR 147.136 (PDF), in plain English at HealthCare.gov, and your own denial letter states the ones that govern your plan. The PDFs are the same sections on govinfo.gov, which serves them without a challenge page, so an automated reader can check these two dates as easily as you can.
You are not alone, and here is the measured version of that sentence: 576,337 in-network claims were denied by UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in Tennessee in a single plan year. A denial rate is a fact about an insurer's book of business. It is not a judgment about you, and it is not the last word on your claim.
- Of the 5 insurers reporting a denial rate in Tennessee, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company is the second highest at 22.1%. The highest in the state is 23.5% and the lowest is 6%.
- That is 6.4 percentage points above the 15.7% national average across this dataset, and 4.6 points above the Tennessee average of 17.5%.
- Behind the percentage: 2,608,244 in-network claims were processed under 16 plans in Tennessee, and 576,337 of them came back denied.
- For every 10,000 claims UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denied, about 9 came back as an internal appeal. The other 9,991 stopped at the letter.
- Of the internal appeals it did receive, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company overturned 38.89%, 196 claims that started life as a no.
- Its most-recorded denial reason is other reasons at 36.5% of its categorized denials, against 32.4% nationally, a heavier share than the country as a whole. That is the denial mix, not an outcome rate.
- In Tennessee, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company reported 22.1%, and the same company files in 7 other states in this file, where the rate is not the same in any of them: 24.1% in Louisiana, 21.9% in Kansas, 20.8% in Alabama, down to 17.3% in Indiana. Which state the plan was bought in moves the odds more than the brand on the card does.
- UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company accounts for 14.8% of every in-network claim denied in Tennessee in this file.
- By raw volume it is the 33th largest source of denials among the 135 insurer-state records in the file that report one.
- After that, its second-most-recorded reason is provider out of network, 16,124 claims, 17.6% of its categorized denials.
- Third on its own list is referral required, 12,709 claims, 13.9% of what UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company categorized in Tennessee. Between them the top three account for 68% of its categorized denials.
- Where UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company differs most from the national mix is provider out of network: 17.6% of its categorized denials in Tennessee against 9% across the file.
- Read the other way round: 2,031,907 of those 2,608,244 in-network claims were paid, 77.9% of everything UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company processed in Tennessee.
- Spread across the 16 plans it reports in Tennessee, that is about 36,021 denied claims per plan, on about 163,015 claims processed per plan.
- Its reason columns add up to 91,598 categorized rows against 576,337 denials, 15.9% of them, and every reason share on this page is a share of that first figure rather than of the second.
- Its smallest recorded category in Tennessee is benefit limit reached, 280 claims, 0.3% of what UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company categorized there.
- Against the file as a whole, this one record is 0.7% of the 83,907,852 in-network claim denials reported by every issuer in it.
- Find the reason code on your denial letter. The reason UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company records most often in Tennessee is other reasons, but yours may be one of the other 8, copy the exact wording and code off your own letter tonight, because that sentence is what your appeal has to answer.
- Ask UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in Tennessee for the clinical criteria they judged you against. Under 29 CFR 2560.503-1 they have to hand you the claim file and the policy they applied, free, on request, and you cannot argue with a checklist you have never read.
- Put both deadlines on your calendar before you go to bed. 180 days from the date on the letter for the internal appeal, 4 months from the final internal denial for external review. The free calculator on this page turns your date into the two calendar dates in about ten seconds. UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company overturned 38.89% of the internal appeals it did receive, 196 claims, so the stage you are about to start is not decorative.
None of those three steps costs anything. Anyone charging you to do them is selling you something you can do yourself in twenty minutes.
How that compares
| Denial rate | Rate | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company | 22.1% | , |
| Tennessee average | 17.5% | +4.6 pts |
| National average (this dataset) | 15.7% | +6.4 pts |
UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denies 6.4 percentage points more of its in-network claims than the national average across this dataset. A denial rate is a property of the insurer's book of business, coding practice, plan design, the population it covers, not evidence about the merits of any one claim, including yours.
What happened to appeals
| Stage | Filed | Overturned |
|---|---|---|
| Internal appeal (to UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company) | 504 | 38.89% |
| External review (independent) | not reported | not reported |
What that record means for your own UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company letter, and by when. UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company overturned 38.89% of the 504 internal appeals its Tennessee members filed against 576,337 denials, and the Tennessee escalation count for UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company is the figure this page names as absent at the top, so how many of those denials went on to the independent stage is not something this page can tell you, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company's own rows in the plan-year 2027 release of the CMS Transparency in Coverage file, read November 4, 2026 (data.healthcare.gov). Whichever way that lands, nobody files the appeal for you, and the filing runs on a clock set by which plan you hold: an employer or Marketplace plan gives you at least 180 days from the denial notice to file the internal appeal (29 CFR 2560.503-1(h)(3)(i), carried onto individual-market coverage by 45 CFR 147.136(b)(3)(i)), while Medicare Advantage gives you 65 calendar days from the date of its notice (CMS, 42 CFR 422.582(b)) and Medicaid managed care 60 calendar days from the date on the notice (42 CFR 438.402(c)(2)(ii)), both stages free, and the three steps above are the whole of what to do tonight, so take the date printed on your UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company notice and file well inside whichever of those windows is yours. The free steps are above; the $29 kit is the same clock with the letters pre-filled for UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in Tennessee. One payment. No subscription. No cut of your claim.
UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company inside Tennessee
Your denial did not happen in a national average. It happened in a state market, alongside 4 other insurers reporting into the same federal file, and these are that market's own figures.
- Across the whole of Tennessee, the 5 insurers reporting in this file processed 22,206,362 in-network claims and denied 3,896,627 of them, a state denial rate of 17.5%. UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company is one of those 5.
- That puts Tennessee tenth of 29 states by denial rate, 1.8 points above the 15.7% national average, before you get to what UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company did inside it.
- Tennessee recorded 30,249 internal appeals against those denials: one appeal for every 129 claims the state's insurers refused. UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company's own ratio is one for every 1,144.
- Independent external review was reached 66 times in the whole of Tennessee, once for every 59,040 denials, against one in 17,061 nationally. How many came from UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company's denials is not on the record, that is the Tennessee figure this page names as absent at the top and sources at the foot.
- Of the Tennessee external reviews that were filed, 0 were overturned, 0%. That percentage is measured on 66 reviews, which is why the count beside it matters more than the rate does when you are deciding whether to file against UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company.
- The reason Tennessee's insurers record most often is administrative reason, 1,458,994 claims, 35.9% of the state's categorized denials. UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company records other reasons most often instead, which is the argument your letter will need to answer.
- The other insurers a Tennessee reader could have bought from run from 23.5% (BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee) to 6% (Alliant Health Plans, Inc.). UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company at 22.1% sits between the two.
- Put the two together and UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company is responsible for 14.8% of every in-network claim denied in Tennessee in this release, from 11.7% of the claims the state's insurers processed.
- Every Tennessee figure in this section is that state's own row in the same federal file UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company's numbers above come from, CMS Transparency in Coverage Public Use File (PY2027 release, PY2025 claims), data.healthcare.gov — US Government public domain, and the full Tennessee page is free at /states/tennessee.
What UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denies most
The most common denial reason recorded for UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company plans in Tennessee is other reasons. How that denial is beaten →
| Denial reason | Claims | Share | National share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Other reasons | 33,463 | 36.5% | 32.4% |
| Provider out of network | 16,124 | 17.6% | 9% |
| Referral required | 12,709 | 13.9% | 9.6% |
| Service excluded from the plan | 10,058 | 11% | 13.4% |
| Administrative reason | 9,658 | 10.5% | 17.2% |
| Member not covered | 9,306 | 10.2% | 7.9% |
| Benefit limit reached | 280 | 0.3% | 4.9% |
The last column is each reason's share of all categorized denials nationally, so you can see where UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company's mix in Tennessee differs from everyone else's. This is denial mix, not overturn rate by reason, the federal file does not report appeal outcomes broken down by denial reason, and we do not imply otherwise.
Put the date from your notice in and get the two calendar dates, with the days remaining.
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Or let the $29 Appeal Kit date each step and write the claim-file and external-review requests.
The three steps at the top of this page are the whole of what you have to do tonight. The longer version, what the internal appeal has to contain, how the independent stage works, and how to ask for expedited handling when waiting would seriously jeopardize your health, is published free here. For what it is worth on this page specifically: UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company overturned 38.89% of the internal appeals it received.
Who appeals what at UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare runs a mandatory TWO-STEP provider process, a claim reconsideration first, an appeal only after, and is strict about who counts as the member's representative. The first row is the member's route; the others are the provider's. From UnitedHealthcare's published pages, written for health care providers and members; each is listed below with its date. It is brand-level and applies to UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in Tennessee the same as to every other UnitedHealthcare entity in the file.
| Dispute | Route |
|---|---|
| A plan denial you want changed (member) | Member, authorized representative or contracted provider. The member form says a timely request; federal rules generally give at least 180 days |
| Post-service claim dispute (provider) | Reconsideration first, then appeal, both steps inside 12 months |
| Pre-service denial | Appeal 'made prior to a planned health care service'; expedited available if delay could seriously jeopardize the member |
| Provider appealing on the member's behalf | Requires authorization/patient consent, an assignment of benefits is NOT enough |
Operational facts from the same policy
- Combined window for both steps: 12 months , One clock covers both steps — a slow reconsideration eats the appeal window.
- Two-step structure is mandatory: reconsideration, then appeal
- Assignment of benefits is not representation: separate patient consent needed , For patients: your provider billing UnitedHealthcare for you does NOT automatically let them appeal AS you — a separate authorization is needed, or you appeal yourself.
- Submission is portal/API: UnitedHealthcare Provider Portal or API , No mailing address or fax is published on this page.
- Expedited appeal is pre-service only: not available after the service
- Peer-to-peer review windows: 3 business days inpatient / 21 calendar days outpatient
- Member grievance window (California section of the form): 180 calendar days , Member-side second source. This wording sits under the form's California grievance instructions, so it is not a national appeal deadline. UnitedHealthcare's provider page publishes no member window.
- Who may appeal (member side): member, authorized representative, or contracted provider
- Member review clocks: acknowledge 5 days, decide 30 days standard / 3 days urgent , Stated on a form page that also carries California-specific sections (DMHC 1-888-466-2219, Independent Medical Review) — plan-state specifics can vary.
Sources: UnitedHealthcare, "Pre- and post-service appeals and reconsiderations", quoted, not paraphrased; audience: health care providers; checked 2026-11-05. UnitedHealthcare, "Member service request form (memberforms.uhc.com — carries state-specific sections incl. California IMR; undated)", quoted, not paraphrased; audience: members; checked 2026-11-05. Brand-level policy, applied here because UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company is a UnitedHealthcare entity. Your own denial letter and plan documents govern your specific case.
Questions
Is UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company's denial rate in Tennessee high?
22.1% against a national average of 15.7% across the plans in this dataset. It is above average. A denial rate describes the insurer, not the merits of your claim.
How many people appealed a UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denial in Tennessee, and how many won?
504 internal appeals were filed against 576,337 denials, and 38.89% of them were overturned (196 claims). How many went on to independent external review is not on the record for UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in Tennessee, that is the absence stated at the top of this page and sourced at the foot of it.
How does UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company compare with other insurers in Tennessee?
Of the 5 insurers in Tennessee with a reported denial rate, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company ranks 2 highest at 22.1%. The highest in Tennessee is BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee at 23.5%; the lowest is Alliant Health Plans, Inc. at 6%.
What does UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company deny most often in Tennessee?
Other reasons, 33,463 claims, 36.5% of this issuer's categorized denials, against 32.4% nationally. This is the denial-reason mix; the federal file does not report overturn rates by reason.
How long do I have to appeal a UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denial in Tennessee?
Generally 180 days from the date on the denial notice to file the internal appeal, then generally four months from the final internal denial to request independent external review. Expedited review, decided in about 72 hours, is available where delay would seriously jeopardize your health. Those timeframes are federal, so they are identical for every insurer reporting in Tennessee, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company included, what varies by state is who runs the independent review at the end. Your own denial letter states the deadlines that govern your plan; that letter is the authority.
Does appealing a UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company denial in Tennessee cost anything?
The internal appeal to UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company is free. External review is free under the HHS-administered federal process; where an issuer uses a contracted independent review organization or a state process, any fee is capped at $25 per review. Nobody in Tennessee can be charged more than that to file one.
Can UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company ignore an external review decision in Tennessee?
No, and that is the whole point of the stage. External review decisions are binding on the plan by law. The count is the one this page names as absent for UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in Tennessee, so none is printed for it, an absent figure is not a count of none.
UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company sits at 22.1% in Tennessee against 15.7% nationally, and that is the whole of what this page can honestly tell you about your own claim. We are not going to tell you that you will win. This page prints the insurer's own reported numbers whichever way they fall. If what it says does not match the letter in your hand, write to us and we will correct the page.
Axion Labs · hello@getaxionlabs.comEverything you need for your UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company appeal in Tennessee: your two deadlines, the argument that fits your denial reason, the letters, a brief for your doctor on what the reviewer checks, and the external review request. One payment. No subscription. No cut of your claim. Opens on screen the moment you pay. 14-day refund, no questions, one email to hello@getaxionlabs.com.
The UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company figures on this page, the 22.1% denial rate, the 576,337 denials, are this issuer’s own reported rows in that file. CMS did not report an external-review figure for UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company in Tennessee in the plan-year 2027 release of the Transparency in Coverage file, which is why no external-review count appears above.
Counts: CMS Transparency in Coverage Public Use File (PY2027 release, PY2025 claims), data.healthcare.gov — US Government public domain. Rights and timeframes: 29 CFR 2560.503-1 (180 days, and your free right to the claim file) and 45 CFR 147.136 (4 months, and what qualifies), explained at HealthCare.gov. Expedited review is decided in about 72 hours under both sections.
Reading either regulation from a script rather than a browser: eCFR answers automated fetches with a challenge page, so the same two sections are mirrored as government PDFs at govinfo.gov (29 CFR 2560.503-1) and govinfo.gov (45 CFR 147.136).