(NewsNation) — A former UnitedHealthcare claims representative says employees were systematically trained to deny medical claims and rush distressed customers off phone lines, revealing internal practices at the nation’s largest health insurer amid growing scrutiny of the industry.
Natalie Collins, who worked for UnitedHealthcare for nine months, said Saturday on “NewsNation Prime” that staff received “so many different ways to deny” claims during their two to three months of training, with supervisors often standing behind representatives instructing them on denial methods.
“We weren’t given proper instruction to actually pay the claim, and there wasn’t enough monies in certain files in certain companies to pay medical claims,” Collins said. “We would have to just get the client off the phone as fast as we could.”
Collins described crying at her desk while handling calls from desperate patients, as supervisors laughed.
Collins, now the owner of “Mother’s Keeper Doula,” quit her position after attempting to approve payment for a widowed mother of five whose husband died of pancreatic cancer, saying supervisors had instructed her to deny the hospice claim and get the caller “off our phone line.”
“They just wouldn’t allow me to submit the claim. There would be alerts on each claim telling us that either we had to put it back in our queue and it would just go to someone else, 30 days later, 60 days later,” Collins said.
Luigi Mangione pleads not guilty to state murder
Collins’ experience comes after accused UnitedHealthcare CEO killer Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to murder and terror charges in New York State Court. Public support for Mangione has grown, with his legal defense fund reaching $250,000 in donations.
“It’s all about your employer and who they are negotiating with to get their employees the best health coverage,” Collins said when asked what she wanted the public to know.
A recent poll found that about seven in 10 adults believe insurance company denials and profits bear at least moderate responsibility for CEO Brian Thompson’s death.
Collins said that while she understands public anger, she condemns violence.
“We the people are sick and tired,” Collins said.
“I don’t believe anyone should die … but people are angry. People have reasons to be very angry, and I feel that to my bones. I’ve seen it, I lived it, I processed them and I denied them.”
