Meiram Bendat, a marriage and family therapist licensed by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences and a licensed attorney by the State Bar of California, has been making great strides towards helping people get insurance companies to cover treatment costs. In the past, his business Psych Appeal has aided both health care providers and patients in obtaining insurance reimbursement for medical mental health needs.
Bendat believes, “To bolster profitability, insurers often ignore claims altogether, delay reimbursements, deny claims that fail to meet their own definitions of “medical necessity,” and violate mental health parity mandates.” Deciding to take action, he spearheaded the class-action lawsuit filed against California United Behavioral Health (UBH), United Healthcare Insurance Company, and US Behavioral Plan. The lawsuit claimed that these companies wrongly withheld coverage for mental health care.
California’s Mental Health Parity Act makes it mandatory for insurers to give treatment for mental-health cases with the same conditions used in situations that apply to medical conditions. United Behavioral Health has been accused of performing reviews of routine outpatient mental health treatments that are not conducted for other medical conditions.
The lead plaintiff is a woman who was limited to coverage for one session of psychotherapy per week for only one month when she was recommended 4 weekly psychotherapy sessions. Because UBH has been rationing a very small amount of care to patients in order to make a greater profit, they are being accused of putting many mental health patients at risk.
The story of the lead plaintiff is not unlike many other mental health patients. The amount of care UBH is willing to cover is just not enough to get individuals the help they need. 1 psychotherapy session per week for one month is an extremely short period of time to get any sort of positive change.
With the help of Meiram Bendat, people are taking a stand in the name of mental health patients everywhere. Hopefully, the class action suit will continue to produce results of greater coverage for those with mental health disabilities.
For more information about Psych-Appeal and the lawsuit, visit this website.