Outcry Forces UnitedHealthcare to Delay Plan to Deny Coverage for Some E.R. Visits

Within days of announcing a policy shift aimed at cutting back on reimbursements for emergency room care, the major insurer retreated — for now.

Just days after UnitedHealthcare announced that it would stop paying for emergency room hospital visits that it deemed nonurgent, the company faced mounting opposition and said on Thursday it would delay the policy shift until the pandemic had ended. Under the new policy, which was to go into effect next month, UnitedHealthcare, the giant insurer, had planned to scrutinize the medical records of its customers’ visits to emergency departments to determine if it should cover those hospital bills. But in the last week, several major hospital and doctor groups demanded that United abandon the policy. “Plain and simple, this is a very misguided policy that could have a chilling effect for people going to the emergency room,” Rick Pollack, the chief executive of the American Hospital Association, a trade group, said earlier this week.