United Healthcare Loses Family’s $100,000 Mental Health Lawsuit

United Healthcare Insurance Co. wrongly refused to pay more than $100,000 toward a child’s months-long stay at a residential facility for self-harming behavior and other mental health issues, a federal judge ruled.

The insurer stopped covering the child’s stay at Missouri’s Shelterwood Residential Treatment Center after about one month, saying her condition had improved such that this level of care was no longer medically necessary. But this decision didn’t appropriately account for the child’s self-harming activities and suicidal ideation, and it overlooked the “unequivocal” opinions of her treating physicians that she continued to require residential care, Judge Elaine E. Bucklo ...