"Collins described crying .. while handling calls from desperate patients, as supervisors laughed." [UnitedHealthcare]

[nmmi]

UnitedHealthcare taught us ways to deny claims: Former employee, News Nation, 12/28/24

(NewsNation) — A former UnitedHealthcare claims representative says employees were systematically trained to deny medical claims and rush distressed customers off phone lines, revealing internal practices at the nation’s largest health insurer amid growing scrutiny of the industry.

Natalie Collins, who worked for UnitedHealthcare for nine months, said Saturday on “NewsNation Prime” that staff received “so many different ways to deny” claims during their two to three months of training, with supervisors often standing behind representatives instructing them on denial methods.

“We weren’t given proper instruction to actually pay the claim, and there wasn’t enough monies in certain files in certain companies to pay medical claims,” Collins said. “We would have to just get the client off the phone as fast as we could.”

Collins described crying at her desk while handling calls from desperate patients, as supervisors laughed.

Collins, now the owner of “Mother’s Keeper Doula,” quit her position after attempting to approve payment for a widowed mother of five whose husband died of pancreatic cancer, saying supervisors had instructed her to deny the hospice claim and get the caller “off our phone line.”

Excerpt: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/unitedhealthcare-taught-us-ways-to-deny-claims-former-employee/ar-AA1wDB5Q

[usonian]

1. It looks like AI made many decisions and let people take calls by patients and doctors asking why payment was denied.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/12/18/unitedhealth-ai-insurance-claims-healthcare (WBUR)
How insurance companies use AI to deny claims

December 18, 2024

[dchill]

2. This describes murder as a legitimate...

...business decision.

[benfranklin1776]

3. Heartless soulless bastards 🤬

F—k them to the hell they so knowingly, willfully and gleefully consigned people who rightfully expected them to honor their contractual commitments in their hour of need. Dante never experienced the horror of United Health Care or he would have created a special ring of hell for the demons in their employ who practice this malevolent evil.

[AllyCat]

4. Insurance needs to die as a business model

Not just the CEO-types.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

6. But we can't get our poiticians to do it.

That applies to both Democrats and Republicans.

It's always the same root cause: money in politics exacerbated by Citizens United.

Until we get a handle on that we're fucked.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

11. The Advantage consortium is working on replacing Medicare with their for-profit insurance policies.

Despite the name, i.e., "Medicare Advantage," they are not related to the government program, which cannot deny care. Advantage is quite simply an insurance policy, and the insurer is working toward paying out as little as possible, as late as possible, if at all. (I worked as a lawyer, and that was the attitude of all insurance companies.) We are not people, we are product.

Medicare is much, much better than Advantage in every single way.

Universal healthcare, like Canada and European countries have, is the way to go. Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

12. Yep, it's part of the big push towards privatization, which Republicans love.

I just wish that healthcare was the one thing that even Republicans agreed shouldn't ever be privatized because much though they value money, profits should never be placed above human life. Instead, as we both know, they're bent on privatizing our healthcare, aided and abetted by the egregiously ignorant people who vote for them. Many of the same people who vote Republican are going to someday set themselves up to die a premature and agonizing death after being denied medical treatment when they most need it. Many others are going to be forced to sell their house or be evicted from their apartment and become homeless in a desperate attempt to pay for their outrageously expensive medical treatment. What's so unfair is that many of us who know better (i.e., always vote for Democrats) are going to have to suffer the same fate. If Republicans are going to be that heartless and cruel, then they should at least legalize euthanasia. Instead, our society is more humane to animals than to people.

I mentioned money in politics as the root cause of why we don't have universal healthcare in America. But it goes deeper than that. What really screws us are the people who vote Republican. But for them, we would have been able to get the money out of politics and then push our Democratic politicians to give us universal healthcare.

But now, after giving fascists control of the federal government, Republican voters have put us in a hole so deep, we might not ever be able to get out.

[ReRe]

5. An example of real news media reporting

I'm not a big NewsNation follower, but I will commend them for this reporting. I hope it snowballs with many more Natalie Collins coming forward. Maybe more witnesses will keep coming forward and in 2026, when we win back Congress and the Senate, the hearings will start and some accountability will be demanded from our supposed Health Insurance Companies.

I look at these denials as straight out theft. Period.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. I know, right ? NewsNation ?? Who'da thunk it ? Bill O'Reilly's new home .... nt

[NBachers]

7. Maybe I should rethink that guy's GoFundMe.

Please spare me the lectures

[bmichaelh]

9. Lymphoma survivor

In 1990, I was diagnosed with lymphoma.

It returned in 2019; I went through 4 unsuccessful treatments over 2 years; all failed.
The cancer returned near my spinal column.
Between the 3rd and 4th failed treatments, I required the use of a walker.

On the fifth treatment, after a few treatments, my insurer tried to rescind approval; but my provider was successful on appeal.
They tried to rescind approval; when my provider knew the treatment was working; my mobility was increasing with each treatment.
Now, I am on my third remission; this time for 2.5 years. I no longer need the walker.

First, ACA allowed me to have a fifth treatment.
I would have exceeded lifetime limits, which ACA forbids, years ago.

Second, ACA did not go far enough in some areas.
Insurers should not be making life and death decisions for their patients.

In my case, I could have suffered paralysis before death.

I do not have much confidence that GOP will do anything.
Hope that the Democrats make this part of the campaign in the midterms.

I live in a district with a Democratic Congressmen but with 2 Republican US Senators.
I could write the Republicans but nothing would probably happen.

Unfortunately, a lot of people will suffer until Congress enacts changes.

[C0RI0LANUS]

10. This disgusting UHC story is reminiscent of an appalling business practice that occurred on 9/11.

My friend's friend told us a horror story many years ago. On 9/11 every head in the US was riveted to CNN watching the WTC collapse and the Pentagon aflame. This gentleman told us his supervisor at an investment bank ordered the staff to continue making their calls and to never mind the TV. The supervisor said this was the best time to make calls as panic and fear were the best ways to sell their financial plans to anxious Americans.

My friend's friend quit that firm soon after.

F#@$^& capitalism.