UnitedHealthcare expands support for rural health care communities

UnitedHealthcare is taking new steps to strengthen access and help lower costs for health care in rural communities — by helping local hospitals get paid faster, cutting down on paperwork and supporting new ways to bring care close to home.

Building on the success of its Rural Payment Acceleration Pilot, launched earlier this year, the pilot is now expanding to five additional states, with new initiatives designed to support independent rural hospitals and the patients who rely on them.

Under the initial pilot, launched in January 2026, Medicare Advantage payments to hospitals were accelerated from fewer than 30 days to fewer than 15 days on average.

Together, these efforts focus on improving hospitals’ financial stability, reducing administrative burden and expanding access to high‑quality care for rural residents.

“Rural care providers are essential to their communities yet fragile, so we welcome the chance to make meaningful investments to support their work — and we expect to continue investing more and actively building on these initiatives,” said Tim Noel, Chief Executive Officer, UnitedHealthcare.

For many rural hospitals, reliable and quicker payment timelines are essential to keeping doors open and services available.

UnitedHealthcare will immediately extend accelerated payments to additional independent rural hospitals in five more states:

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Kentucky
• West Virginia
• Virginia

By fall of 2026, this program will expand to approximately 1,500 rural hospitals and their associated rural practitioners nationwide, including all Critical Access Hospitals. This will also include payments made through Medicaid and fully insured Commercial plans.

In addition to faster payments, UnitedHealthcare will exempt rural providers from most of the medical prior authorization requirements that exist today. This exemption will apply to the same group of roughly 1,500 rural hospitals, including Critical Access Hospitals and their associated rural practitioners across all lines of business.

This effort aims to help reduce cost and staffing strains that often affect rural providers at a greater rate, while maintaining safeguards for quality and patient safety through ongoing reviews.

This approach recognizes the unique circumstances of these rural providers, while allowing them to spend more time delivering the care people need.

To further improve the continuity of care in rural communities, UnitedHealthcare is partnering with leading health systems to support hub‑and‑spoke care models.

These models connect regional centers of clinical expertise (the “hubs”) with community‑based access points (the “spokes”), making specialized care more accessible closer to home.

These partnerships may include a range of capabilities, such as:

• Mobile and virtual care
• Data interoperability and analytics
• Clinical decision support
• Home‑based care

Initial areas of focus include maternity care, diabetes and post‑surgical care — areas where coordinated models can make a meaningful difference for patients in rural areas. The initiative aims to deliver a hub‑and‑spoke approach that improves outcomes and may serve as a model for expansion into additional markets.

These initiatives reflect UnitedHealthcare’s ongoing commitment to empowering rural providers and supporting sustainable, resilient health systems in these communities.

By partnering with providers to innovate, learn and expand on what works, UnitedHealthcare is helping to advance more accessible, coordinated and affordable care for people living in rural communities — today and into the future.