“The way to look at mental health care from an insurance perspective is: I don’t want to attract those people. I am never going to make money on them.”
ProPublica talked to more than 500 providers who quit insurance networks. One psychologist made an estimated 45 calls over more than a year to get Cigna to pay a $1,400 claim it admitted was a mistake. A former Cigna manager says the friction is the point. Insurers do not need to deny care when a thin network and a fax machine do it for them.