UnitedHealthcare Hit With Second Suit Over Cancer Treatments

UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. faces a second proposed class action claiming it wrongly fails to cover a cancer treatment called proton beam radiation therapy.

The insurer relied on an arbitrary policy to consistently deny coverage for the therapy on the grounds that it was experimental or investigational, the April 3 lawsuit claims. But proton beam radiation therapy has been recognized “for decades” by the medical community as an established, appropriate cancer treatment, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, which seeks to represent a class of patients with prostate cancer, comes one week after the insurer was hit with a similar class ...