The Fee Schedule Arrives the Day It Starts Paying
Aetna is updating its Market Fee Schedule in nine states on October 15 and November 1. The bulletin announcing it went up on August 13. The rates themselves publish on the effective date, which is the one number you need and the one you do not get, and in Maine and Washington the statutes say what you are owed instead.
On page 14 of Aetna's September OfficeLink Updates there is a four-paragraph article telling providers in nine states that their fee schedule is changing.
Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington on October 15. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island on November 1.
The article explains the method: RBRVS off the CMS website where it exists, site-of-service differential applied, vendor pricing models and nationally contracted rates everywhere else. It tells you the services affected are the ones in the compensation section of your contract.
Then it tells you when you can look at the numbers.
"The updated fee schedules will be available to view as follows: October 15, 2026, for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington."
Same date. The rate file publishes the morning it starts paying you.
Sixty-three days of one thing and zero of another
The PDF went up on Aetna's servers on August 13 (HTTP last-modified, 17:50:52 GMT, which is the only publication date the document carries anywhere). That is 63 days ahead of the October 15 group and 80 ahead of the November 1 group.
So the notice is real. What the notice contains is a sentence saying a number will change.
Now put that next to everything else in the same 39-page document. The commercial drug list changes take effect January 1 and post for review on October 1, which is 92 days of lead. The Claim and Code Review Program edits start December 1 and are already sitting on Availity under "expanded claim edits," 110 days out. The maternity restructure, 17 codes deleted and 12 added, is 141 days out with the framework public now.
Every one of those gives you the actual content in advance. The fee schedule gives you the announcement (chart below).
That gap is the whole piece of work you cannot do. You cannot model an October 15 rate change in September, you cannot put a number in front of the CFO, and you cannot decide whether the contract is still worth holding, because the input arrives after the decision window closes.
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