UnitedHealth Puts ER Coverage Policy on Ice After Backlash

UnitedHealthcare — which recently followed in the footsteps of Anthem, Inc. by rolling out a policy that would retroactively deny certain emergency room visit claims — is now planning to hold off on implementing the change after facing fierce blowback from provider groups. Health care policy experts, meanwhile, have mixed opinions about whether the policy was wise to implement in the first place during an ongoing pandemic.

“How anyone at United thought this was a good idea is a mystery for the ages,” says Joe Paduda, principal of Health Strategy Associates LLC. “The correct reaction would be for the company to ask why it handled this so poorly.”

But Ari Gottlieb, a principal with the health care consulting firm A2 Strategy Group, suggests that UnitedHealth could have made the new policy work. “I’m struck by the pre-emptive outrage at a policy that depending on how implemented, may have been quite limited in scope and impact and generally appeared to be aligned with lowering healthcare costs,” he tells AIS Health, a division of MMIT.

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Leslie Small

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.

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