Health insurer Aetna has for years been taking money it is not entitled to from medical malpractice plaintiffs, a new lawsuit alleges.

The class action suit is led by Francis McWilliams, a Jasper County resident who filed a malpractice lawsuit in 2022 over a botched surgical procedure that partially paralyzed his face. The parties eventually agreed to a settlement, only to run into a new obstacle: Aetna, which insured McWilliams and paid for follow-up care after the surgery, alleged it had a lien in the case and demanded repayment for McWilliams’ care.

The settlement couldn’t be completed with Aetna’s claim pending, and ultimately, McWilliams agreed to pay it.

The problem, according to the lawsuit filed last month in Polk County, is that Aetna had no right to such a reimbursement. Iowa law specifically prohibits malpractice plaintiffs from recovering damages for medical care that already has been covered by an insurer. If the plaintiff can’t recover that money from the original medical provider, the theory goes, an insurer can’t then recover that money from them.

“Our claim is that these are invalid liens that they’re collecting on. They’ve been collecting on these invalid liens for years,” attorney Jeffrey Lippman, representing McWilliams, told the Des Moines Register. “What we’re asking the court to do is certify class so that we can get reimbursements for all of our class members on all medical expenses that they paid.”

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The lawsuit, which has since been moved to federal court, names Aetna Health of Iowa and a collections firm, Rawlings Co. of La Grange, Kentucky, as defendants. An Aetna spokesperson declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

The lawsuit seeks to represent a class of all malpractice plaintiffs who have paid liens on their settlements to Aetna from 2019 to 2024. While the number of cases affected by this is not known, the complaint estimates there have been about 800 malpractice suits filed in Iowa over those five years, of which an unknown number involved plaintiffs insured by Aetna.

The complaint brings claims for extortion, interference with contracts, violations of debt collection law and unjust enrichment.

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Lippman also noted that it’s possible Aetna isn’t the only insurer using liens to claw back medical expenses from malpractice plaintiffs.

“A lot of other companies are probably doing the same thing that Aetna is doing,” he said, noting many companies are believed to use the same collection company involved in McWilliams’ case. “My understanding is it happens pretty much industry-wide.”

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Oldham County collections firm sued in Iowa over health care dispute