NEW: Three years ago, UnitedHealthcare was sanctioned for illegally denying mental health coverage.
We've found similar practices are still very much alive, after reviewing leaked documents that reveal the company’s playbook for limiting care.
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https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-mental-health-care-denied-illegal-algorithm
We've found similar practices are still very much alive, after reviewing leaked documents that reveal the company’s playbook for limiting care.
🧵👇
https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-mental-health-care-denied-illegal-algorithm
Comments
My final substantive lecture before we pivot to student presentations is tomorrow and it’s on… drum roll… the future of health reform in the U.S.
You should share your syllabus here, I'm sure the #medsky folks would be very interested (not to mention journalists like me 🙋)
It's been a really fun class to teach, covering health law, public and private insurance, admin burden, pharma, mental health, reproductive health, racial inequities, pandemics, etc.
Again, should be requiring learning for all Americans. The complicated nature of our health care system is part of what keeps it inequitable. It's nearly impossible to navigate and get the care people need (and are often entitled to).
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTYFUdSTH/
My wife worked in medical billing. She saw it from the inside, and it's horrific. America should be ashamed, but hiding truth is too easy.
President Nixon: “Fine.”
Ehrlichman: “…the incentives run the right way.”
Nixon: “Not bad.”
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Transcript_of_taped_conversation_between_President_Richard_Nixon_and_John_D._Ehrlichman_%281971%29_that_led_to_the_HMO_act_of_1973: #cspan #cspanwj
@anniewaldman.bsky.social
ACA requires large insurers to spend 85% of every premium dollar on Health Care. How does United benefit from denying care then? Would love to read an analysis of how the grift works under ACA regulations.
They aren't in the business to pay out for treatment, they are window dressing for companies to CYA in terms of "offering" health insurance
Several told us they had mysteriously become targets of United, subjected to aggressive clinical reviews if they gave too much therapy to their patients.
https://projects.propublica.org/why-i-left-the-network/
In 2021, they found the nation's largest health insurer was using dozens of algorithms to flag people who they decided were getting too much therapy, then scrutinizing and cutting off care.
One said he felt like "a cog in the wheel of insurance greed."
United, which denied their allegations, agreed to pay more than $4 million in restitution and penalties. It also agreed to not use the system to limit care.
https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-and-us-department-labor-deliver-14-million-consumers-who
Nothing stopped United from using a similar system in other jurisdictions.
I've had 7 (now 8) people die in the last few years and wanted to see someone about grief.
I didn't get to.
also years.
Trust me when I say Medicare for All is the ONLY option. 24 other major Industrial Democracies have it - the US is the ONLY one not to - it spends, on average, 2.5X what the others do and gets less than 1/2 the results.
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