Instead of Addressing Policyholder Concerns, Elevance Directed Police to Force Members Out and Sent Milquetoast Response to Media

Contact: Johanna Kichton, [email protected], 202.660.0605

WASHINGTON, DC – People’s Action’s Care Over Cost campaign yesterday sent a follow-up letter to Elevance Health (formerly known as Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield) after they refused to acknowledge the 70 Elevance members who visited Elevance Health’s headquarters last month. In the new letter, Care Over Cost repeated their request for a meeting with Elevance Health CEO Gail Boudreaux along with demands including the reversal of claims denials, claim denial data transparency, and oversight of the appeals process.

“Bri Moss’s endocrinologist prescribed an Omnipod 5 insulin pump and you, Elevance, provided an out of date pump instead. Bri is sicker as a result and spent Thanksgiving in the emergency room due to an inferior pump,” People’s Action’s leadership wrote. “Through your Anthem BCBS plan on Healthy Indiana, Lane Fulton was denied coverage for $5,000 in bills after three surgeries and sent to collections… Research by the Public Accountability Initiative, which uses publicly available sources, makes clear Elevance/Anthem is profiteering at the expense of Bri, Lane, and millions of other members from around the country whose care you’ve denied.”

Care Over Cost’s demands to Elevance Health include the following:

• Overturn open denials submitted by Care Over Cost;
• Stop denying claims and overturn any existing denials for treatments recommended by medical professionals;
• Provide transparency around denied claims/pre-authorizations by market, state, geography, gender, and race;
• Share monetary value of total denied claims/pre-authorizations broken down by internal and external appeals processes and total percentage of profits taken by denying care for their members;
• Hold monthly open microphone meetings with policyholders to discuss problems with your insurance products; and
• Relinquish ownership of and transfer over the claim and appeals process to relevant public authorities.

Read Care Over Cost’s new letter to Elevance CEO Gail Boudreaux here.

###

People’s Action builds the power of poor and working people in urban, rural, and suburban areas to win change through issue fights and elections. We are a national network of 38 state and local grassroots power-building organizations in 28 states–united in the work of building a bigger “we.”