On May 9, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana granted a consented motion in Russell v. eQHealth Solutions, Inc., Case No. 3:19-cv-00005, conditionally certifying a collective of salaried, non-managerial care coordination and utilization management workers. In this eQHealth overtime lawsuit, the employer consented to the terms. Jack Siegel, with co-counsel, represented the workers.
Judge Shelly Dick signed the order, dated May 9, 2019. eQHealth had consented to the terms of the plaintiff’s motion, and the court granted it on those terms.
In close paraphrase, the collective the court conditionally certified in 2019 included eQHealth’s current and former non-managerial employees who met four conditions:
The definition excluded employees, if any, whose duties involved providing direct medical care to members or traditional nursing care to patients in a clinical setting
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Notice terms. Notice could go by first class mail, overnight delivery, and/or electronically, using email and text wording set in the order. Workers had sixty days after the first mailing to opt in. Counsel had to keep workers’ contact information confidential and use it only for notice.
The collective was built around the work, not one title. It listed seven titles and also reached other non-managerial jobs in two job families. Workers who gave direct medical care or traditional clinical nursing care were left out.
Consent to notice is not an admission. The court acknowledged the parties’ position that eQHealth continued to deny that it violated the FLSA in any respect. It also stated: This Court has not taken any position on the merits of the claims or defenses.
The order does not name an exemption. As general information, the FLSA requires overtime pay for hours over 40 in a workweek unless the employer proves an exemption. A salary alone is not enough. Employers of salaried care coordinators and utilization reviewers sometimes rely on the administrative or learned professional exemption, and each has its own duties test.
In 2019, federal courts in Louisiana often used a two-step process for conditional certification. Some federal appeals courts have since changed this approach — the Fifth Circuit in Swales v. KLLM Transport Services (2021) and the Sixth Circuit in Clark v. A&L Homecare & Training Center (2023). Swales now governs federal courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
This page describes a 2019 court order. The time to join that collective was set by the court in that case. If you have worked in a similar role, the Siegel Law Group can evaluate your own claims.
Did you work as a care coordinator, utilization reviewer, clinical reviewer, or utilization review nurse on a salary? Did you work more than 40 hours in a week without overtime pay? A lawyer can review how you were paid. Contact the Siegel Law Group for a free consultation.
Related rulings: Menth v. Concerto Healthcare, another agreed order for salaried utilization review workers, and Kelly v. Evolent Health, another agreed order covering care coordinators and utilization review nurses.
It depends on the duties, not the title. A salary alone does not make a utilization review coordinator exempt, and the employer must prove an exemption applies. If the coordinator is a registered nurse, a Department of Labor rule says nurses generally meet the learned professional duties test (29 C.F.R. § 541.301(e)(2)), but the job must still require that advanced knowledge. The eQHealth order made no ruling on exempt status.
As conditionally certified in 2019, the eQHealth group included salaried, non-managerial employees who may have worked over 40 hours in a week without overtime between March 19, 2016 and the order date. They held care coordination or utilization review titles and did tasks such as collecting member data and applying predetermined criteria. Workers giving direct or clinical nursing care were excluded.
No. In the eQHealth case, the employer consented to the notice terms, but the order recorded that it still denied violating the FLSA. The court also said it had taken no position on the merits. Consenting to notice is not a ruling that workers were owed pay.
FLSA overtime claims generally reach back two years, and three years when the employer acted willfully (29 U.S.C. § 255(a)). For a care coordinator joining a collective action, the look-back generally runs from the date the signed written consent of that person is filed with the court (29 U.S.C. § 256(b)), not from when the case began. Care coordinators who wait may lose older weeks of pay.
The Siegel Law Group is a national overtime and wage law firm devoted entirely to representing workers denied overtime pay. Where many firms include wage cases as a small part of a broader employment practice, the Siegel Law Group has built its entire practice around overtime litigation — and the results reflect that commitment: $100M+ recovered for workers, 50+ class and collective action certifications, and 100+ federal lawsuits filed in 27+ federal courts nationwide. Founding attorney Jack Siegel is a Bloomberg BNA contributing author on wage and hour law.
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