An Aetna sign outside Aetna's headquarters
Last week, Aetna and its parent company, CVS Health, were hit with a consumer, class-action lawsuit on behalf of health care providers.
The defendants, West Loop Chiropractic & Sports Injury Center, performs services for Aetna-insured patients, and Aetna compensates them using a prepaid card. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants forced health care providers to accept payments made via prepaid debit cards which charge merchant fees, ranging from 3.5%-4.5%, to process the payments. At the same time, Aetna allegedly denied requests for alternative payment methods.
The complaint alleges that through the insistence of using prepaid debit cards, the burden of Aetna’s operational costs was unfairly shifted onto health care providers. The lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, damages for unfair acts and practices and unjust enrichment, including restitutionary damages and costs of suit.
This lawsuit is just one of several recent legal actions against Aetna across various operational and payment practices. Last year, Aetna was also named in an antitrust lawsuit over alleged price-fixing, where numerous health insurer defendants were accused of conspiring to decrease payments for patient care rendered by out-of-network providers, allowing the defendants to earn more than physicians.
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