Multiplan

•    If so, you may have paid too much!
•    The AHA has urged the Labor Department to Investigate MultiPlans’s “Unconscionable Practices” – which end up costing patients and employers for necessary care
•    Major insurers like UnitedHealthcare, Cigna and Aetna, among others use MultiPlan to reduce the amount they pay for service while increasing the amount that you do!
•    Learn more about your legal rights below.

The New York Times reports that the consulting firm MultiPlan, in partnership with major health insurance companies, evaluates charges for patient care from out-of-network providers and often recommends that insurers and health plans pay significantly less than the amount of the actual bills. This results in the patient being billed for the difference between the provider’s bill and the underpayment recommended by MultiPlan. This can mean thousands of dollars in unexpected medical bills to the consumers.

UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Humana, and other major insurers have used MultiPlan to aggressively reduce the rates that they are willing to pay providers for medical care. MultiPlan, itself, estimates that its consulting services extend to more than 100,000 health plans covering more than 60 million people.

The less MultiPlan recommends the insurer to pay of a provider’s bill, the larger the fee that MultiPlan collects. This system of perverse incentives enriches the insurance companies and MultiPlan, and shifts the responsibility for the unpaid balance for the treatment to the consumer.

Patients hit with these bills sometimes skip care, stop long-term treatment, or face serious financial difficulty.