Cite as: 536 U. S. 355 (2002)
Syllabus
overstates Pilot Life's rule. The enquiry into state processes alleged to "supplemen[t] or supplan[t]" ERISA remedies, id., at 56, has, up to now, been more straightforward than it is here. Pilot Life, Massachusetts Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U. S. 134, and Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, all involved an additional claim or remedy that ERISA did not authorize. In contrast, the review here may settle a benefit claim's fate, but the state statute does not enlarge the claim beyond the benefits available in any § 1132(a) action. And although the reviewer's determination would presumably replace the HMO's as to what is medically necessary, the ultimate relief available would still be what ERISA authorizes in a § 1132(a) suit for benefits. This case therefore resembles the claims-procedure rule that the Court sustained in UNUM Life Ins. Co. of America v. Ward, 526 U. S. 358. Section 4-10's procedure does not fall within Pilot Life's categorical preemption. Pp. 377-380.
(2) Nor does § 4-10's procedural imposition interfere unreasonably with Congress's intention to provide a uniform federal regime of "rights and obligations" under ERISA. Although this Court has recognized a limited exception from the saving clause for alternative causes of action and alternative remedies, further limits on insurance regulation preserved by ERISA are unlikely to deserve recognition. A State might provide for a type of review that would so resemble an adjudication as to fall within Pilot Life's categorical bar, but that is not the case here. Section 4-10 is significantly different from common arbitration. The independent reviewer has no free-ranging power to construe contract terms, but instead confines review to the single phrase "medically necessary." That reviewer must be a physician with credentials similar to those of the primary care physician and is expected to exercise independent medical judgment, based on medical records submitted by the parties, in deciding what medical necessity requires. This process does not resemble either contract interpretation or evidentiary litigation before a neutral arbiter as much as it looks like the practice of obtaining a second opinion. In addition, § 4-10 does not clash with any deferential standard for reviewing benefit denials in judicial proceedings. ERISA itself says nothing about a standard. It simply requires plans to afford a beneficiary some mechanism for internal review of a benefit denial and provides a right to a subsequent judicial forum for a claim to recover benefits. Although certain "discretionary" plan interpretations may receive deference from a reviewing court, see Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U. S. 101, 115, nothing in ERISA requires that medical necessity decisions be "discretionary" in the first place. Pp. 381-386.
230 F. 3d 959, affirmed.
357
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