Inside UnitedHealth’s Playbook for Limiting Mental Health Coverage — ProPublica [Nov 19]
How UnitedHealth’s Playbook for Limiting Mental Health Coverage Puts Countless Americans’ Treatment at Risk
Reporting Highlights
- An Insurer Sanctioned: Three states found United’s algorithmic system to limit mental health coverage illegal; when they fought it, the insurer agreed to restrict it.
- A Patchwork Problem: The company is policing mental health care with arbitrary thresholds and cost-driven targets, highlighting a key flaw in the U.S. regulatory structure.
- United’s Playbook Revealed: The poorest and most vulnerable patients are now most at risk of losing mental health care coverage as United targets them for cost savings.
An article from a month ago about United Heathcares problematic coverage, which I believe is relevant again.
![Inside UnitedHealth’s Playbook for Limiting Mental Health Coverage — ProPublica [Nov 19]](https://img.assets-d.propublica.org/v5/images/mental-health-united-fallback.jpg?crop=focalpoint&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5171&fp-y=0.1621&h=630&imgixProfile=propublicaAssetsV5&q=90&w=1200&s=7ca7990b0db9a9475c4981578393eecf)
https://www.propublica.org/article/unitedhealth-mental-health-care-denied-illegal-algorithmOpen linkView original on feddit.uk237
Comments22
Jesus Christ, America is a nightmare
Capitalism working as intended.
Great write-up. This explains why so many of my provider friends tell me they want to go work at Starbucks or Target, which didn't make sense at first because you still have to deal with the public. This gives some additional perspective.
The part that immediately got me was the clinician hiring a biller to dispute the $20k payback, only for it to be reduced to $10k. They probably paid the biller almost $10k to get the documentation together. For smaller paybacks, the clinic would probably be taking a loss to dispute the charge even if it gets stopped completely. As long as the insurer can provide justification for the charge, there's basically no way to punish them for doing this, even when the insurer knows the original payment was legit.
Coward???
Damn, if only we could ask Brian for his response to all of these awful things... so tragic.
Thoughts and prayers
Your thoughts and prayers have been deemed not medically necessary.
Good news. The board relented on the thoughts, but they were pretty firm on denying the prayers.
So tragic.
Tragedy is a spectrum really.
Such a terrible loss.
And yet people wonder why the CEO was killed.
Perpetrator? His chest just did that.
Google "Ken McElroy."
Act of god.
i really really can't stop crying about the death of a ceo and the guy who did the really bad thing is totally not my hero
he was just great and humble guy like the politicians from MN said.
Actual quote. A terrible loss "for the healthcare community", not a loss for his kids though interestingly enough.
No Democrat is going to endorse or sanction a murder. If you don't believe in the death penalty, you can't defend this guy's murder, and politicians are supposed to sound all responsible-like.
It's not an internally consistent position, but my morality doesn't have to be strictly defined and codified into laws. Someone responsible for making laws kinda has to do their best at advocating that those laws represent absolutely morality.
We here are under no such expectations. You should never assault someone, but if that someone is a Nazi I'm buying you a beer. If someone murders a CEO responsible for death and misery, murder is still wrong, but perhaps less wrong than in other cases. I'm not losing sleep.
Walz could have just said "tragic loss of human life" and not try to get sympathy for the healthcare industry.
Why I'm a utilitarian. Morals need to be a little flexible to be able to account for all situations. I believe in the greater good.
Looks like the roles have been reversed and united has been targeted for life savings.