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Commissioner John King announced Monday he had issued nearly $25 million in fines to health insurance companies over violations of Georgia mental health parity laws.
ATLANTA — Georgia’s insurance commissioner, John King, on Monday announced he had fined multiple health insurance companies nearly $25 million in aggregate over alleged violations of state mental health parity laws.
The Mental Health Parity Act of Georgia, King’s office said in a release, “requires that insurers provide coverage for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders in a manner comparable to that of physical health coverage.”
In accordance with provisions in the law that began taking effect in 2023, King’s office conducted examinations described as “comprehensive, data intensive audits of an insurer’s business practices” of 22 insurers.
Legal actions released by King’s office show the examinations resulted in fines against at least 11 of those insurers. Among the allegations were that companies “imposed additional or more rigorous prior authorization requirements for mental health claims.”
Across the various insurers, the commissioner found thousands of alleged instances of this conduct.
They have been ordered to cease and desist “from imposing greater barriers to covered mental healthcare services as compared to medical surgical services in violation of the Georgia Insurance Code.”
“I said it before and I’ll say it again: insurance companies will not take advantage of consumers under my watch,” said Commissioner King in a statement. “These companies are not above the law, and I am taking definitive action to hold them accountable for denying Georgians the care they need.”
The insurers will have 10 days to request a hearing on the issues alleged in legal notices sent to them by the insurance commissioner. Otherwise, the fines are due to be paid within 60 days.
Four of the companies were fined in excess of $2 million — one of them, Oscar Health Insurance, was fined more than $10 million.
The insurers and their fines included:
- Aetna ($1.843 million)
- Alliant Health Plans ($926,000)
- Blue Cross Blue Shield ($4.619 million)
- CareSource ($527,000)
- Cigna Healthcare ($2.058 million)
- Humana ($821,000)
- Kaiser Foundation Health Plan ($2.586 million)
- Kaiser Permanente Insurance Company ($289,000)
- Nippon Life ($224,000)
- Oscar Health Insurance ($10.247 million)
- UnitedHealthcare ($643,000)
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