"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