Methodology

Where the numbers come from.

Built from payer files published under federal law. Methodology is published before purchase — so practice owners and billing consultants can inspect the source, scope, and exclusions before committing.

Providers indexed

81,224

Health plans

Report variants

Data vintage

March 2026

Design decisions

Three design decisions behind every report.

Primary-source payer data only

We skip surveys and crowd-sourced averages. Every benchmark is built exclusively from Transparency in Coverage machine-readable files published by health plans under federal law. Traceable. Reproducible.

Explicit credential separation

We do not blend master's-level and psychologist rates. Separate cohorts preserve the meaningful differences payers apply — and that matter when a practice sets compensation tiers or reviews a contract.

High-confidence publishing threshold

If a cohort doesn't meet our minimum sample size or coverage threshold, it isn't published. We prioritize reliability over catalog breadth. Every live report meets the bar.

The data pipeline

From payer file to published benchmark.

Discovery

We resolve and ingest federal Transparency in Coverage files directly from payer-hosted indexes, covering millions of contracted rate records per refresh cycle.

Normalization

Raw data is filtered to fee-for-service outpatient rates only. Capitated, bundled, and percentage-of-billed arrangements are excluded. Records are mapped to specific CPT codes and the target geography — so a multi-payer practice gets a clean comparison without arrangement-type noise.

Credential separation

Each provider NPI is cross-referenced against the National Provider Identifier Registry. This lets us separate master's-level therapist rates from psychologist rates, preserving the cohort differences that matter for panel reviews.

Validation

Each cohort is scored for confidence based on provider density and rate variance. If it doesn't meet our minimum threshold, it isn't published.

A note on scope

This is an observed market distribution — not a guarantee of what any individual provider will receive. Payer files are large and complex; errors in original disclosures may persist despite our cleaning steps. Supplemental bonuses, value-based arrangements, and individual contract addenda are not included in federal TiC data. Use this benchmark to evaluate your rate position, not as a contractual floor or ceiling.

See the methodology in action

Browse reports →

Full benchmark library

Texas benchmarks →

All payers, one state

Compare payers →

Side-by-side CPT 90837

Articles →

Data-backed analysis

CPT 90837 reference →

Code definition & context

Correction policy

If you believe a rate in a report is materially incorrect, contact corrections@ratescope.co. We review all correction requests within 5 business days and publish corrected reports or issue full refunds.