Anthem Watch Launches

Welcome to Anthem Watch!

Starting today, this new accountability initiative from Action for Health will be monitoring, investigating, and spotlighting Anthem—the second-largest health insurance company in America. In the weeks and months ahead, be sure to check back in with us often as we bring to light the company’s legal challenges, regulatory penalties, and corporate practices that prioritize bottom lines over its members’ care. And we will be working to educate policymakers, the press, and, most importantly, the public so that everyone can help address these problems.

Simply put, Anthem’s tactics and anticompetitive behavior disrupt the patient-physician relationship.

They’ve raised premiums without improving their network or coverage. They’ve raked in record profits while now trying to penalize the doctors who save lives. This new project will work to bring some much needed sunlight and accountability to this opaque industry and its actors like Anthem.

Our first priority out the gate is to spotlight Anthem’s plan to implement a new policy starting on January 1 that would punish hospitals and outpatient facilities for using out-of-network physicians. In 11 states, the company’s “Facility Administrative Policy: Use of a Nonparticipating Care Provider” intends to cut payments to these facilities by 10% and potentially terminate them from Anthem’s networks. This move is a clear violation of the No Surprises Act, an abdication of Anthem’s network adequacy obligations, and a tremendous threat to patients’ continuity of care.

We’ll have more on Anthem’s new policy in our next post.