KFF
KFF (formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation) is an independent, nonpartisan source of health-policy research, polling, and journalism. AbilityForge cites it for denial-rate, prior-authorization, and coverage data drawn from federal records.
What It Is
KFF is a nonprofit organization that produces original health-policy research, national public-opinion polling, and award-winning journalism through KFF Health News. It does not sell insurance, lobby, or take positions for a party. Its analysts take large federal datasets — the kind that are public but nearly unreadable in raw form — and turn them into clear, sourced findings the public and policymakers can actually use.
A common confusion worth clearing up: KFF is not Kaiser Permanente. It is a separate, independent foundation and is not affiliated with the Kaiser insurance plans or hospitals. The shared name is historical, not operational.
Why You Can Trust It
KFF is one of the most widely cited health-policy sources in the country — relied on by members of Congress from both parties, by academics, and by news outlets across the political spectrum. Its methodology is published alongside its findings, and it works directly from primary federal data rather than from advocacy talking points. When other outlets report a denial-rate statistic, KFF is frequently the source they are quoting.
Why AbilityForge Cites It
The core denial numbers on this site come from KFF's analysis of the federal CMS Transparency in Coverage data: that ACA marketplace insurers denied roughly 19% of in-network claims in 2023 (UnitedHealthcare 33%), that Medicare Advantage insurers processed 49.8 million prior-authorization requests in 2023, and that fewer than 1% of denied claims are ever appealed. These are not AbilityForge's estimates — they are KFF's reading of the government's own required disclosures.
See the denial-rate data →Related Terms
Sources: KFF (kff.org), organizational description from its own public materials; denial figures from KFF analyses of CMS Transparency in Coverage and Medicare Advantage prior-authorization data (2023–2024).