New internal documents reveal that one of the country’s largest insurance companies, Cigna, has been rejecting patients’ insurance claims without even opening them.
The company has built a system that allows its doctors to instantly reject a claim on medical grounds without opening the patient file, leaving people with unexpected bills.
Over a period of two months last year, Cigna doctors denied over 300,000 requests for payments using this method, spending an average of 1.2 seconds on each case, the documents show. The company has reported it covers or administers health care plans for 18 million people.
In our current system, insurance companies depend on denying coverage to make millions in profit for their shareholders. It’s disgusting, and the cost is people’s lives.
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