Important News

November 3, 2020

NYS Council members,

The significance of this ruling (see attached) cannot be overstated!

The note below is from an attorney (I presume outside counsel) for the National Council who writes:

The federal court overseeing Wit v. United Behavioral Health issued the attached remedies order this morning. In its 99-page ruling, the court explained the need for: (1) a 10-year injunction requiring UBH to exclusively apply medical necessity criteria developed by non-profit clinical specialty associations; (2) appointment of a special master; (3) training of UBH in the proper use of court-ordered medical necessity criteria; and (4) reprocessing of nearly 67,000 mental health and substance use disorder benefit claims denied during the class period.

Today’s ruling stems from two consolidated class actions, Wit et al. v. United Behavioral Health. and Alexander et al. v. United Behavioral Health, brought by Psych-Appeal, Inc. and Zuckerman Spaeder LLP under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) in 2014, certified in 2016, and tried in October 2017. While nearly 50,000 ERISA insureds will be eligible for class-wide relief in this case, non-ERISA insureds (such as governmental employees) adversely impacted by UBH’s defective guidelines must rely on state and federal regulators to intervene on their behalf.