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.

    • quixotic120@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      You deleted it your post, you coward, but you said this was too long so here’s the summary.

      Insurances have created a web of confusing regulations that give them a million reasons to take back tens of thousands of dollars sometimes years after paying you, the only real way to protect yourself from that is to join a massive healthcare network who has leverage of their size to push back against the insurer, but joining a healthcare network as a mental health worker means earning peanuts because our reimbursement rates are nothing compared to physicians so we have to work independently to actually earn money.

      As a result we take on all the risk, we shoulder the financial burdens, we do the unpaid administrative work, all for an average of 70k annually as contract workers (no benefits with that salary so consider that we also have to pay for health insurance, retirement, time off, etc). And that clawback can’t be written off as a loss on your taxes by the way, whether it’s $1000 or $40,000