Elevance Settles Mental Health Coverage Class Action For $13 Million

Elevance Health (Elevance) settled a class-action complaint alleging that its Anthem commercial health plans applied overly restrictive criteria to claims for residential behavioral health treatment. The plaintiffs alleged that the restrictive criteria violated federal mental health parity laws.;

Additionally, the plaintiffs alleged that Anthem’s coverage focused on intervention for short-term crisis, but not on medically necessary treatment for chronic and persistent symptoms of behavioral health conditions. The complaint, Marissa Collins et al. v. Anthem Inc. et al. (case number 2:20-cv-01969), was filed in April 2020 in the US District Court for the Eastern . . .