UnitedHealthcare Enhances Provider Portal to Streamline Member Payments
UnitedHealthcare has announced significant improvements to its Provider Portal to provide healthcare practices with increased control and visibility of received payments directly from the members. The update makes the process of delivering, tracking, and reconciling virtual payments simple and does not affect the current processing timelines.
New Features
- Under the new process, payments from members are now shown in the Document Library of the UnitedHealthcare Provider Portal.
- The payment information will continue to be received in digital fax or paper form.
- It is recommended that providers regularly check the new payments from the members' folder to ensure that payments are uploaded to the account of their organization.
- The practices should swipe the transaction through their credit card point-of-sale terminals and charge it as a credit payment. Don’t process it as a debit card.
What’s Not Changed?
Just like in the previous case, members' virtual card payments (VCPs) must be processed by the providers within 30 days; otherwise, they are automatically refunded to the member.
Overview
Document Library
- The digital notifications are more effective than the traditional fax and paper mail since they allow access to the payment information much faster, and accounts receivable are managed more effectively. Providers can use the Document Library Interactive User Guide to know where and how to review stored documents.
- Teams can now organize and remain responsive, as practices can now assign an email recipient under Document Delivery Settings to receive alerts whenever a new payment document is uploaded. Document Delivery Settings Interactive User Guide provides guidance on how to set up email recipients
Payment Preference Center
The new Payment Preference Center in Profile and Settings enables practices to review how members pay them. Virtual card payment is the default payment system. It’s a secure, digital way to transmit payments.
In case practices choose not to use VCPs, and they want to bill directly, they can opt out of VCPs. Other options, like paper checks or straight-through processing (STP) VCPs as a method of member payments, are not made available until later in 2026.
Contact Details
The 24/7 chat service is accessible on the UnitedHealthcare Provider Portal for providers who have questions.
