r/HealthInsurance • u/Rankin37 • 1h ago
Prescription Drug Benefits GLP-1 Prior Auth Denied Despite Additional Requested Info Being In The Original Prior Auth
I am 28 years old and have been morbidly obese since childhood. After moving out to college I started to build a healthier relationship with food and exercise but it has been hard. There have been many lapses, many regressions. I'm trying as hard as I can to lose weight on my own through diet (calorie restriction, Mediterranean diet) and exercise (mostly biking). I'm actually down about 30 pounds from the beginning of the year but I'm starting to plateau at about 315lbs. At this point my doctor and I both agree that additional help is needed.
Medically, I have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease which has progressed to Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatohepatitis (MASH). I had a fibroscan at a facility in March which indicated severe scarring of the liver. In addition to this I also have high blood pressure caused by being morbidly obese. In mid June my doctor prescribed me Wegovy, which requires prior authorization with my insurance (United Healthcare). My plan unfortunately does not cover weight loss meds for the purposes of weight loss alone, but we were hoping that with the additional context of the MASH diagnosis and high blood pressure they would see that this is medically necessary to prevent further heart/liver damage.
I actually gave United Healthcare a call yesterday to ask about the status since it's been a month and I haven't heard anything and the advocate told me it was approved! Yippee! Except actually, when I checked the myUHC app later that evening it said denied. This led to an hour long phone call with them where they spent most of it with me on hold, waiting for them to tell me what I already knew, it's denied because it's a plan exclusion. I took the night to cool off then earlier this morning I called United Healthcare again to discuss this with an advocate and they told me what OptumRx (their Rx approval team?) was looking for. They want to see my fibrosis stage and my liver stiffness measurement, both of which were already in the original prior authorization. Did they just straight up not read the original prior authorization and stamp it as denied? I understand it's a plan exclusion but I should not have to appeal this to get this health insurance company to do their job correctly. Like, are they just hoping I won't appeal? What is going on here? Has anyone else experienced this? How can they deny me and then ask for additional details they have already been given?