Data report · Oct 29, 2026
We checked 3,313 Texas provider listings against the federal registry
Insurers are legally required to publish who is in-network and accepting new patients. We pulled those public directories for Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin and cross-checked every provider against the federal NPI registry. Only 15% of providers passed enough checks to earn high confidence.
Key findings
- 15% of 3,313 providers earned high confidence; 41% were low confidence or not accepting.
- For providers listed as accepting, the office ZIP matched the federal registry 42% of the time, and the phone number only 33%. A mismatch isn't always an error — many providers practice at several offices — but it's a reason to call before you go.
- 38% had an insurer record refreshed in the last 90 days.
- Of 62 providers listed by more than one insurer, 5 were marked accepting by one and not accepting by another.
- UnitedHealthcare marked every one of its listings as accepting new patients — so its flag can't distinguish open panels from full ones.
Accepting-new-patients flags by insurer
| Insurer | Listings checked | Marked accepting | Marked not accepting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cigna | 3,534 | 94% | 6% |
| Humana | 0 | — | — |
| UnitedHealthcare | 6,422 | 100% | 0% |
Why it matters
A 2023 U.S. Senate Finance Committee secret-shopper study found 80% of mental health listings in Medicare Advantage directories were inaccurate or unreachable. These "ghost networks" leave patients calling provider after provider. Our numbers measure consistency between public data sources rather than phone calls, so they show where to be cautious rather than a definitive error rate.
Methodology
Source data: insurer provider directories published under the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access rule (Da Vinci PDex Plan-Net FHIR APIs), and the CMS NPPES NPI registry, retrieved Oct 29, 2026. Up to 1,500 directory locations per insurer per city were sampled. Providers were matched by NPI. A listing earns one point per check passed; see how we verify. Deactivated NPIs were excluded.
Use this data
Journalists and researchers may cite these figures with a link to this page. For the underlying numbers by city, insurer or specialty, use the contact details on our about page.