You spend your days coordinating patient care, following up with providers, managing transitions, and juggling caseloads that regularly push you past 40 hours a week. Your employer calls you a Care Coordinator — not a Case Manager — and that title may be one of the reasons they've told you that overtime doesn't apply to your position.
But here's what the law actually says: under the Fair Labor Standards Act, your job title is irrelevant. What matters is the work you do. And if your work looks like case management — assessing needs, developing care plans, coordinating services, and monitoring delivery — then the same legal protections that apply to case managers apply to you.
Care coordinator overtime misclassification is widespread across healthcare, managed care, and social services. Employers use the "coordinator" label to create the impression that these roles are somehow different from case management. They aren't. And federal law, the Department of Labor, and courts across the country have all made that clear.
The principle is written directly into the FLSA's own regulations. 29 CFR § 541.2 states that an employee's exempt or non-exempt status is determined by actual job duties — not by job title, job description, or how an employer characterizes the position. This means that calling someone a "Care Coordinator" instead of a "Case Manager" does not change the legal analysis one bit.
This is not a technicality. It's the foundation of how the FLSA works. Employers cannot avoid overtime obligations by rebranding a non-exempt position with a new title. If the duties remain the same, the legal result remains the same.
And the duties are the same. Whether your employer calls you a Care Coordinator, a Patient Care Coordinator, a Transition of Care Coordinator, a Health Care Coordinator, a Community Care Coordinator, or an Intensive Care Coordinator, the core work is identical: you assess patient or client needs, develop or implement care plans, coordinate among providers and services, and monitor the delivery of care over time. That is case management work, and it is non-exempt production work under the FLSA.
The legal framework that protects care coordinators is the same framework that has produced tens of millions of dollars in recoveries for case managers across the country. Here's how it works.
To deny you overtime, your employer must prove that you fall within the administrative exemption — the exemption most commonly applied to care coordination roles. That exemption requires the employer to show that your primary duty involves work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer, and that you exercise discretion and independent judgment on matters of significance.
Care coordinators fail both of these tests.
Production work, not administrative work. Federal regulations under 29 CFR § 541.200 distinguish between workers who deliver the employer's core service and workers who run the business itself. Care coordinators deliver the core service. When a managed care company, hospital, or health agency hires care coordinators, those coordinators are the service — they provide the hands-on care coordination that the employer exists to deliver. That makes their work "production" rather than "administrative," regardless of what the position is called.
No discretion or independent judgment on matters of significance. Under 29 CFR § 541.202, the exemption requires the kind of high-level decision-making that affects a company's direction or policies. Care coordinators don't make those decisions. They follow clinical protocols, apply standardized assessment tools, implement care plans based on established criteria, and work within frameworks set by their employers and regulatory bodies. That involves professional skill, but it is not the type of discretion the FLSA requires for exemption.
The U.S. Department of Labor has issued multiple opinion letters concluding that case management work is non-exempt — and those opinions apply equally to care coordinators performing the same duties under a different title.
The DOL's Field Operations Handbook (FOH § 22j49(a)) provides similar guidance to federal investigators. The government's position is consistent: workers whose primary duty is coordinating care for a defined population are not exempt from overtime, regardless of their job title.
One of the reasons care coordinator misclassification is so pervasive is that employers use an enormous variety of titles for what is essentially the same role. The title on your badge may differ from organization to organization, but the work is remarkably consistent.
Common care coordinator titles that are frequently misclassified include:
Every one of these titles describes a role built around the same core functions: assessing needs, developing plans, coordinating services, and monitoring delivery. And every one of them is subject to the same FLSA analysis. If you perform these duties, you are likely entitled to care coordinator overtime pay — no matter what your employer has printed on your job description.
Care coordinator misclassification spans nearly every sector of healthcare and social services. These are the industries where we see the most violations.
Managed Care and Health Insurance. Managed care organizations employ thousands of care coordinators to manage member populations, reduce hospital readmissions, and control costs. These organizations have powerful financial incentives to classify coordinators as exempt. Companies like UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Centene, and Molina Healthcare have all employed large care coordination workforces — and all have faced questions about how those workers are paid.
Hospitals and Health Systems. Hospital-based care coordinators manage discharges, coordinate post-acute care, and facilitate transitions between levels of service. The work regularly extends beyond scheduled shifts, particularly when patients require urgent placement or insurance authorization before discharge.
Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Community health centers rely heavily on care coordinators to help underserved patients navigate complex systems, connect with specialists, and manage chronic conditions. These roles often involve significant overtime that goes uncompensated.
Behavioral Health Agencies. Care coordinators in behavioral health settings manage clients with mental health conditions, substance use disorders, or both. Caseloads are often heavy, crises are unpredictable, and hours frequently exceed 40 per week.
Home Health Agencies. Care coordinators in home health spend time traveling between patient homes, coordinating with physicians and family members, and completing documentation — often after their shifts have officially ended.
IDD and Developmental Disability Providers. Agencies serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities employ care coordinators to develop service plans, coordinate Medicaid waiver services, and ensure regulatory compliance. The DOL's 2007 opinion letter addressed a disability services provider directly, finding its coordination staff non-exempt.
Child Welfare and Foster Care. Care coordinators in child welfare manage placements, conduct home visits, attend court hearings, and coordinate services for vulnerable children and families. These positions routinely involve overtime that employers fail to compensate.
The case law reinforces what the DOL has been saying for years. Courts have approved significant recoveries in cases involving care coordinators and workers performing the same duties under related titles.
Pruess v. Presbyterian Health Plan — $38.7 Million. This landmark settlement involved managed care workers performing care coordination duties, including individuals with care coordinator titles. Presbyterian agreed to pay $38.7 million to resolve claims that it failed to pay overtime. Siegel Law Group's Jack Siegel was involved in this case. It remains one of the largest care coordinator and case manager overtime recoveries in the country.
Deakin v. Magellan Health — $16 Million. Magellan Health employed approximately 200 workers with the title "Care Coordinator" who alleged they were misclassified as exempt from overtime. After eight years of litigation, including both class certification and summary judgment rulings in favor of the workers, the case resolved for $16 million. The court's rulings confirmed that the care coordinator title did not change the fundamental nature of the work — these employees performed non-exempt production duties.
Cases Against Fortune 500 Employers. Care coordinator overtime lawsuits have been filed against some of the largest companies in America. When employers maintain company-wide policies classifying care coordinators as exempt, they create exposure that can reach tens of millions of dollars when workers join together through collective actions.
Many care coordinators are surprised by how much they may be owed in unpaid overtime. Under the FLSA, you can recover:
Here's a concrete example of how the math works:
Suppose you earn a salary of $1,300 per week and regularly work 50 hours. Your effective hourly rate is $26 per hour ($1,300 divided by 50 hours). For each overtime hour beyond 40, you are owed an overtime premium of $13 per hour (half your effective hourly rate, because your salary already covers straight-time pay for all hours worked). With 10 overtime hours per week, that equals $130 per week in unpaid overtime.
With liquidated damages doubling that figure, your damages come to approximately $260 per week — or roughly $13,520 per year. Over the three-year lookback period for willful violations, that totals approximately $40,560 in potential recovery for a single care coordinator.
Now multiply that across an entire department or company. In a collective action involving 100 or 200 care coordinators, the employer's total exposure can easily reach millions — which is exactly why cases like Pruess and Deakin resolved for the amounts they did.
No. The overwhelming weight of authority — DOL opinion letters, federal regulations, and court decisions — supports the conclusion that care coordinators are not exempt from overtime under the FLSA. The administrative exemption does not apply to workers whose primary duty is delivering the employer's core service, and care coordination is a core service function in every industry where these workers are employed.
If your employer has told you that you're exempt because you're salaried, because your title includes "coordinator," or because you have a degree or professional license, those arguments do not hold up under the FLSA's actual legal standards. What matters is the work, not the title — and the work care coordinators do is non-exempt production work.
If you believe you've been denied overtime as a care coordinator, take these steps now:
Keep your own time records. Start tracking the hours you actually work each week — including time before and after your scheduled shift, work done remotely, and time spent on calls, emails, or documentation outside business hours. Use a personal notebook or your phone's notes app, not your employer's timekeeping system.
Preserve your pay records and job documents. Save pay stubs, offer letters, job descriptions, and any documents that describe your duties or compensation. If your employer changes your title, classification, or job description, save both versions.
Understand that retaliation is illegal. The FLSA prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who assert their overtime rights. If your employer takes any adverse action against you for raising overtime concerns, you have additional legal protections and potential claims.
Don't wait. The FLSA's statute of limitations means that every week you delay is a week of unpaid overtime you may never recover. Two years of back pay becomes available immediately; a third year is available if the violation was willful.
Consult a lawyer who handles these cases. FLSA overtime claims are handled on contingency — you pay nothing upfront and nothing out of pocket. Attorney's fees are paid by the employer if the case succeeds.
Siegel Law Group has recovered more than $80 million for workers denied overtime pay. We have secured more than 50 class and collective action certifications in 27 federal courts across the country. Our practice is concentrated in FLSA overtime cases for care coordinators, case managers, and other healthcare and social service workers.
We were directly involved in the $38.7 million Pruess settlement and the $16 million Deakin settlement — two of the largest care coordinator and case manager overtime recoveries in the nation. We have taken on UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Centene, Magellan Health, and other major employers, and we have obtained results at every stage of litigation.
We understand the specific legal issues that affect care coordinators because we have litigated these cases for over a decade. We know the DOL opinion letters, the regulatory framework, and the case law — and we know how to apply them to your situation.
If you're a care coordinator who has been working overtime without proper pay, contact us today for a free, confidential consultation. The conversation takes about 10 minutes. We'll review your situation, explain your options, and give you an honest assessment of whether you have a claim — all at no cost and no obligation. You can reach us by text or email at [email protected].
Your title may say "coordinator." The law says you're owed overtime. Let us help you collect it.
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