Health Insurance
This Little-Known Appeal Could Force Your Insurer to Pay for Lifesaving Care. Here’s How to File It.
When a health insurer refuses to pay for your treatment, you may have the right to have the denial reviewed — and potentially overturned — by an independent provider. Here are six steps experts suggest to help you through the external appeal process.
“Just Let Me Die”: After Insurance Repeatedly Denied a Couple’s Claims, One Psychiatrist Was Their Last Hope
After a North Carolina man attempted suicide twice, his wife tried to get him help at an inpatient clinic. But their insurance provider refused to cover the treatment, deeming it “not medically necessary.”
Trump’s Rollback of Rules for Mental Health Coverage Could Lead More Americans to Go Without Care
The president, who has framed mental health as a national crisis, paused rules to hold insurers accountable for unlawfully denying coverage. And Congress cut funding to the agency that enforces insurers’ equal treatment of mental and physical health.
Congress Is Pushing for a Medicaid Work Requirement. Here’s What Happened When Georgia Tried It.
GOP lawmakers want to nationalize Medicaid work requirements to offset Trump’s proposed tax cuts. Yet Georgia’s example shows that this could threaten health care for nearly 16 million Americans and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Local Reporting Network
Impact of Our Reporting
He Died Without Getting Mental Health Care He Sought. A New Lawsuit Says His Insurer’s Ghost Network Is to Blame.
The mother of Ravi Coutinho, the subject of a recent ProPublica investigation, is suing Centene for publishing “misleading” information that gave her son a false impression about the kinds of mental health care that were actually available.
New Law Increases Oversight of Arizona Sober Living Homes
The legislation follows a ProPublica and Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting investigation on a $2 billion Medicaid fraud scheme that targeted Native Americans seeking drug and alcohol treatment.
Insurers Failed to Comply With Mental Health Coverage Law, Department of Labor Report Finds
The probe found widespread noncompliance and violations of federal law in how health plans and insurers cover mental health care, echoing the findings of a recent ProPublica investigation.
Series
Series: America’s Mental Barrier: How Insurers Interfere With Mental Health Care
What We’re Watching
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely.
Learn more about our reporting team. We will continue to share our areas of interest as the news develops.
Sharon Lerner
I cover health and the environment and the agencies that govern them, including the Environmental Protection Agency.
Andy Kroll
I cover justice and the rule of law, including the Justice Department, U.S. attorneys and the courts.
Melissa Sanchez
I report on immigration and labor, and I am based in Chicago.
Jesse Coburn
I cover housing and transportation, including the companies working in those fields and the regulators overseeing them.
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