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A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana is supporting a deal that calls for OptumRx to pay $1.9 million to settle a class-action suit involving health coaching calls.
OptumRx is a pharmacy benefit manager subsidiary of UnitedHealth.
The PBM has used automated systems to try to encourage patients to follow their doctors' health advice, in an effort to reduce the impact of patients' ineffective use of prescribed medications.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt issued an order Wednesday granting preliminary approval for the settlement.
She scheduled a fairness hearing on the settlement for March 31.
The plaintiffs in the case, Brad Patterson v. OptumRx, include people in the United States who were not OptumRx customers or accountholders and who received many types of automated health coaching calls on cell phones or internet-based phone lines from OptumRx between April 20, 2020, and Oct. 22.
The class excludes people who agreed to let OptumRx call them and people who only received prescription refill reminders and calls about COVID-19 vaccines.
Representatives for the parties could not immediately be reached for comment.
The backdrop: The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act places tight limits on companies' use of "robocall systems."
Many insurers, including UnitedHealth, have faced waves of TCPA-related litigation in recent years.
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