A former employee sued Highmark in a proposed class-action lawsuit Tuesday, alleging the company did not pay nurses and care coordinators for overtime.
In the lawsuit, Lynn Cole, who worked as a care management nurse for Pittsburgh-based Highmark from June 2017 to September 2019, said that Highmark wrongly classified certain employees as exempt from federal and state overtime laws.
A Highmark spokesperson said the company just received the lawsuit and “cannot comment on pending litigation.”
The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in federal court in Pittsburgh, alleges that Highmark was in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act.
The proposed class includes utilization management nurses, utilization review nurses, care coordinators, nurse reviewers, care management nurses and others who reviewed medical authorization requests submitted by healthcare providers.
Highmark required affected employees to work long hours, including overtime hours, to meet productivity standards and complete their job responsibilities, according to the lawsuit. The company also did not keep adequate records of the hours worked by the affected employees, the lawsuit alleged.
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