Lawsuits for Utilization Review Nurses Over Unpaid Overtime
Last Updated on September 23, 2024
At A Glance
- This Alert Affects:
- Utilization review nurses who work more than 40 hours per week without overtime pay.
- What’s Going On?
- It’s believed that some nurses who perform utilization reviews are being illegally denied time-and-a-half overtime wages. Attorneys are looking to file class action lawsuits to help these nurses recover unpaid wages.
- What Can I Do?
- If you worked more than 40 hours per week as a utilization review nurse and didn’t get time-and-a-half overtime wages, fill out the form on this page. Attorneys may contact you directly to tell you more about their investigation and what you can do.
Lawsuits are being filed on behalf of utilization review nurses who may have been illegally denied proper overtime wages.
Even if you are salaried or were told you cannot receive overtime, your job duties as a UR nurse (or similar title) may require your employer to compensate you at time-and-a-half for work in excess of 40 hours a week, including back pay.
What are the lawsuits alleging?
It has been alleged that some healthcare organizations and insurance companies are wrongly classifying registered nurses who perform utilization reviews as exempt from overtime pay. Attorneys have reason to believe, however, that utilization review nurses – including those who are licensed and salaried – should be considered non-exempt and earn overtime wages because of the nature of their work.
What’s the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees?
Non-exempt employees must be paid time-and-a-half overtime wages when they work more than 40 hours per week, while exempt employees are not owed extra pay for their overtime hours. An employee is classified as either exempt or non-exempt based not only on how much they make – but also on their job duties.
It’s believed that utilization review nurses, who review health benefit requests against predetermined criteria to determine insurance coverage, should receive overtime pay because they perform mostly non-exempt duties that don’t fall under “traditional nursing care.” Some examples of “traditional” nursing care may include working in a clinical setting, administering medicine or treatment to patients, operating medical equipment, helping perform diagnostic tests, providing medical opinions on treatment, or referring patients for independent medical evaluations.
You may be a non-exempt employee if your job requires you to adhere to rigid guidelines instead of making independent decisions based on your own judgment. For example, if your denial of insurance coverage must be escalated to a higher level for approval, this could be a sign that you are performing non-exempt work and should be receiving overtime pay.
Which job titles are the lawsuits looking to cover?
Some of the positions/titles that may be covered are:
- Clinical Outpatient Nurse Reviewers
- Clinical Reviewers
- RN Inpatient Reviewers
- RN Outpatient Reviewers
- Utilization Review Nurses
- Clinical RN Reviewers
- Other similar titles
Even if you work remotely, are salaried, agreed not to earn overtime, or work for the government, you may still be owed overtime wages.
How can a lawsuit help?
A class action lawsuit could help utilization review nurses recover unpaid overtime wages and force companies to correctly classify them as non-exempt employees.
This applies to me. What can I do?
Fill out the form on this page and tell us about your experience as a utilization review nurse. One of the attorneys working with ClassAction.org may reach out to you directly to answer your questions and tell you more about what you can do.
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