Health Insurance

How no-deductible health plans benefit providers

Read Time

7 Minutes

Written by

Team Curative

Published

Aug 11, 2026

Patient health is the priority in your practice. But the way a health plan is designed decides how much of your team's day goes to delivering care and how much goes to collecting money patients often cannot pay.

That second category keeps growing. Nearly nine in ten workers with single coverage face a general annual deductible before most services are covered, and among those workers the average deductible is $1,886, rising to $2,631 at firms with fewer than 200 employees.

For a practice, a deductible is not simply the patient's problem. It is a receivable with a low probability of collection. Provider organizations collected just 34.4% of what commercially insured patients owed, down more than three percentage points in a single year. Across more than 2,300 hospitals on one benchmarking platform, net revenue lost to final denials and uncollected patient balances exceeded $48 billion in a year, with the median bad debt rate climbing and patient responsibility growing to 7.3% of net revenue.

Every dollar in that column arrives with staff time attached: eligibility checks, point-of-service collection conversations, statements, follow-up calls, and eventually a write-off.

No-deductible plans change that arithmetic. Here is how.

A payment process with less to collect

Curative members have $0 copays and $0 deductibles for in-network care and preferred prescriptions. Members have those benefits from their first day on the plan. To maintain them, members and dependents aged 18 and older complete a Baseline Visit within the first 120 days of the plan start, and annually after that.

What that means at your front desk:

No cost share to collect at check-in
No statements going out weeks after the visit
No balance billing, so no collections activity and no bad debt from Curative patients
One payer to bill for the full contracted amount

Payment mechanics are built to match. Providers who enroll in electronic funds transfer and electronic remittance advice receive deposits within one to three business days and can auto-match payments to claims in their billing system. Enrollment is free for in-network providers.

For practices that would rather skip claims entirely on eligible services, the Curative Cash Card pays the cash price at the time of service. No claim to file, no cost share to collect, no waiting on remittance.

Patients who arrive earlier and follow through

Cost sharing does not just delay payment. It delays care, and delayed care shows up in your schedule as sicker patients and broken treatment plans.

More than a third of adults, 36%, say they skipped or postponed needed care in the past year because of cost. Nearly one in five say their health got worse as a result, and about a third report rationing medications by skipping doses, cutting pills, or leaving prescriptions unfilled. Curative's own survey of insured Americans found the same pattern inside employer coverage: roughly half had skipped preventive services and 42% had not taken medications as prescribed.

The clinical consequences are measurable. A cohort study of 343,137 adults published in JAMA Network Open found that high-deductible enrollment was associated with significantly lower use of evidence-based clinic, laboratory, and prescription care across asthma, diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, and major depressive disorder. The authors concluded these plans may not be an appropriate coverage design for people with chronic illness.

When cost is not the deciding variable, the recommendation you make is more likely to be the care the patient actually receives. The Baseline Visit reinforces that early: it connects members with an in-network primary care provider and with Curative's Care Navigation team, which handles logistics and benefit questions so clinical time stays clinical. Our medical director has written more about how plan design either protects or erodes the provider relationship.

Female Patient And Nurse Have Consultation In Hospital Room

Steadier utilization and better quality metrics

Deductible-based coverage creates a predictable annual rhythm: patients defer in the first quarter and rush in the fourth, before the deductible resets. That pattern is difficult to staff for and it works against continuity.

Remove the deductible and the rhythm flattens. Patients engage when a problem appears rather than when their out-of-pocket math improves, which spreads demand more evenly and gives you more opportunity to close care gaps on schedule. Hospital leaders have pointed to the same effect, alongside fewer write-offs and cleaner claims, when evaluating $0 cost-sharing designs.

Screenings completed on time, medications filled, follow-ups kept: these are the inputs to your quality metrics, and cost barriers suppress all three.

Billing is part of the patient experience

A visit can go well clinically and still end badly. Patients treat billing as part of the care experience, and they act on it. Recent survey work on patient expectations found that about two-thirds of patients would be somewhat or very likely to switch providers after a poor communication experience, a continuum that runs from pre-service through payment.

The most reliable way to avoid a bad billing experience is not to send a bill. Curative members are not billed for covered in-network care, which removes the confusing statement, the surprise balance, and the phone call to your office about a charge nobody at the visit anticipated.

Fewer prior authorization detours

Administrative friction is its own tax on a practice. Physicians complete an average of 40 prior authorization requests per week, and 94% say the process contributes to burnout. Three-quarters report denials have risen over the past five years.

Curative publishes prior authorization requirements, submission forms, and status lookup in one place through provider resources, and the Cash Card path skips claim processing and authorization delays for eligible services altogether.

Working with Curative

Curative contracts directly with providers in a growing number of states.

What in-network providers get:

More time with patients and less time on paperwork
No patient copays or deductibles, which means no bill chasing and no bad debt
Faster payment through electronic funds transfer and remittance
Provider Services support at 855-414-1083 and training resources for front office staff
Accurate cost expectations for patients, so no surprise bills

If you want to see what a Curative partnership looks like for your practice, join the Curative network or reach out to Provider Services.

Curative members have no out-of-pocket costs for covered in-network care and preferred prescriptions. Members and dependents aged 18 and older complete an annual Baseline Visit within the first 120 days of the plan start date to maintain these benefits. See curative.com for details. Curative Insurance Company.

Patients experiencing a medical emergency or who have concerns about their medical situation should call 911 or their local emergency number immediately.

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References

KFF. 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/2025-employer-health-benefits-survey/.

Kodiak Solutions. Healthcare Providers Facing Stiff Headwinds on Revenue Cycle Performance. Business Wire. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250227049715/en/Healthcare-Providers-Facing-Stiff-Headwinds-on-Revenue-Cycle-Performance-Kodiak-Solutions-Data-Show.

Kodiak Solutions. Healthcare Provider Organizations Saw Net Revenue Losses From Final Denials and Bad Debt Grow by 25%. Business Wire. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260331038554/en/Healthcare-Provider-Organizations-Saw-Net-Revenue-Losses-From-Final-Denials-and-Bad-Debt-Grow-by-25-in-2025-According-to-Kodiak-Solutions-Proprietary-Data.

KFF. Americans' Challenges with Health Care Costs. https://www.kff.org/health-costs/americans-challenges-with-health-care-costs/.

Curative. Coverage Uncovered: How Status Quo Employer-based Health Insurance Fails Americans. https://curative.com/coverage-uncovered.

Gidwani R, et al. High-Deductible Health Plans and Receipt of Guideline-Concordant Care for Adults With Chronic Illness. JAMA Network Open. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12044513/.

Jacobsen K. Understand patient expectations to foster loyalty. Medical Economics. https://www.medicaleconomics.com/view/understand-patient-expectations-to-foster-loyalty.

American Medical Association. AMA Survey: Prior Authorization Reform Pledge Falls Short with Physicians. https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/ama-press-releases/ama-survey-prior-authorization-reform-pledge-falls-short-physicians.