Health Net

Health Net Inc. has agreed to pay California hospitals at least $1.95 million for care delivered to patients whom the insurer later dropped. The settlement, pending a judge's approval, resolves a lawsuit filed by California hospitals to recover payments they say the Woodland Hills company improperly withheld after canceling the coverage of hundreds of patients.

Patricia Clarey, a top healthcare company executive and former chief of staff to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been appointed to the board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the country's largest government pension fund. Clarey, a Studio City resident, represents the state personnel board on the 13-member panel that manages investments to pay for retirement benefits and health coverage for 1.3 million state, school and local public employees, retirees and their families.

One of the state's largest insurers, Health Net Inc. of Woodland Hills, sold individual policies with the promise of medical coverage while engaging in a secret and illegal scheme to drop patients if they needed expensive treatment, the Los Angeles city attorney contended in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

One of California's largest for-profit insurers stopped a controversial practice of canceling sick policyholders Friday after a judge ordered Health Net Inc. to pay more than $9 million to a breast cancer patient it dropped in the middle of chemotherapy. The ruling by a private arbitration judge was the first of its kind and the most powerful rebuke to the state's major insurers whose cancellation practices are under fire from the courts, state regulators and elected officials.

Health Net Inc., the Woodland Hills insurer hit last week with a $9.4-million penalty after it canceled the policy of a cancer patient while she was undergoing chemotherapy, said Wednesday that the award would take a bite out of its profit. Unlike damages awarded by juries, which often are reduced by appellate courts, Friday’s ruling came from an arbitration judge and is supposed to be binding.

Two of the state's largest health plans agreed Thursday to reinstate coverage to nearly 1,200 patients whose policies were dropped after they incurred high medical expenses. Under the deal, patients whose insurance was rescinded by Kaiser Permanente or Health Net since 2004 will be allowed to purchase new insurance regardless of preexisting medical conditions.

About 3,400 Californians whose health insurance was canceled by Kaiser, Health Net and PacifiCare after they got sick will soon receive notification that they may be eligible for new coverage and for compensation for medical bills they paid while they were uninsured. In a deal with state regulators, the insurers agreed to offer former members new coverage regardless of preexisting medical conditions and to reimburse them for medical expenses.

Woodland Hills-based insurer Health Net Inc. announced a management realignment Tuesday amid weak profit and a downward revision of its earnings projections for 2008 that sent shares sliding. The company posted third-quarter earnings of 17 cents a share. Excluding charges, earnings would have been 35 cents a share -- well off the Thomson Reuters analysts' consensus of 88 cents a share and down from 99 cents a year earlier. Health Net's shares fell $2.44, or 18%, to close at $10.88.

Health insurers Aetna Inc. and Health Net Inc. on Thursday reported increased fourth-quarter profits as they added customers and held down medical costs. Los Angeles-based Health Net, which provides health insurance to 2.4 million people, mostly in California, said fourth-quarter net income rose 11% to $84.8 million, or 72 cents a share, up from $76.7 million, or 65 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose 9% to $3.21 billion as the company targeted small and mid-size employers.

Health Net Inc., a provider of Medicare health plans and other medical insurance, named Joseph C. Capezza chief financial officer as of Nov. 1. Capezza, 52, is the finance chief at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Wellesley, Mass. He replaces interim CFO James Woys.