Healthways fires COO Matthew Michela, and other briefs

Modern Healthcare

  • Health and wellness firm Healthways has fired Matthew Michela, its chief operating officer, less than a year after he earned promotion to the post. Healthways disclosed the termination in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. A public relations firm representing Healthways said the company would not comment. Michela intends to file a lawsuit, claiming Healthways “breached its contract with him,” according to the Nashville Business Journal.

  • Third-party administrators of insurance plans can be sued over allegedly failing to follow a federal law that requires insurers to offer mental health coverage equal to that provided for physical problems, a federal appeals court has ruled.

    A panel of judges for the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals decided that UnitedHealth, as a third-party administrator for an employee health plan, is not exempt from the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which regulates traditional pensions and other employer-provided benefits. UnitedHealth said in a statement that it is evaluating its options for further action.

  • A federal government analysis that found Arizona's health insurance co-op had reached only a fraction of its projected enrollment last year missed thousands of signups and incorrectly showed that the state's not-for-profit set up under the Affordable Care Act signed up only 4% of the people it expected in 2014. The report by HHS' inspector general looked at co-ops operating in 23 states in 2014 and found Arizona's was among the worst-performing. However, a review by the Associated Press showed the inspector general missed one of two annual reports filed by Meritus, Arizona's co-op. The corrected results for Arizona's not-for-profit insurance company amounted to 15% of its 2014 target. Meritus says that figure has since soared and exceeds projections. But adding the second report also more than doubled the losses reported by the co-op.
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