Aetna Care Management Employees Owed OT Pay, Case Alleges

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Aetna Life Insurance Company and Aetna Inc. are on the receiving end of a proposed collective action in which a former employee claims she and other care management workers are owed unpaid overtime wages. The lawsuit claims certain utilization review and care coordination workers at the insurance company have been required to work more than 40 hours per week yet have been misclassified by Aetna as exempt from overtime wages.

According to the plaintiff, employees in certain nursing positions at Aetna—including “Registered Nurse/RN,” “Case/Care Manager,” “Case/Care Management,” and “Utilization Review/Management”—are considered by Aetna to be “exempt” from receiving certain benefits reserved for non-management employees. The lawsuit argues, however, that despite their managerial titles, these employees perform mostly routine, non-exempt duties, such as collecting and recording patients’ medical information, applying established guidelines “to maximize utilization of plan resources,” performing ministerial tasks, and providing insurance plan members with health plan information. Rarely do utilization review/care coordination workers exercise “discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance,” as is typical of exempt employees, the suit says.

As a result of their alleged misclassification, the plaintiff and employees in similar positions have been robbed of time-and-a-half overtime wages, the case claims.

The lawsuit is looking to cover “[a]ll individuals employed by Defendants as Care Management Employees over the last three years who received pay on a salary basis, worked over 40 hours per week in one or more individual workweeks, and who file consent forms to participate in this lawsuit.”