UnitedHealthcare Sued Over Mental Health Coverage Amid Pandemic

UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co. and United Behavioral Health were sued in California federal court by a family who says the insurers wrongly refused to pay for their teenage daughter’s residential eating disorder treatment at a time when less intensive treatment options were unworkable because of the COVID-19 health crisis.

In the lawsuit, filed Monday under a pseudonym in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the teenager’s father claims she was re-admitted to a California residential treatment facility in March after her anorexia and depression worsened. Her doctors later discussed discharging her to a partial hospitalization program, but ...