CareCentrix headquarters at 20 Church St. in Hartford. Courtesy photo.
A prospective collective and class action lawsuit seeking overtime pay for 200 employees of Hartford-based CareCentrix Inc. claims the health management services company violated the Connecticut Minimum Wage Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Connecticut on behalf of former verification specialist Elizabeth Paparella, whose job included collecting and entering customers' eligibility and benefits information. It claims Paparella, a Wethersfield resident, worked about 10 to 12 hours a week for three years without getting compensated.
The suit maintains Paparella and her peers had no choice but to work before they clocked in, after their shifts ended and during lunch to keep up with their caseloads, but did not get paid for those hours. Paparella, who earned $20.54 an hour, worked for the company from 2013 to Nov. 1, 2018, including her stint as a verification specialist, beginning in July 2015.
CareCentrix provides health benefits management services to more than 23 million people by connecting providers and patients through a national network of more than 8,000 credentialed providers throughout the country.
"This is actually an interesting case in that the extent of the tasks exceeded the time allocated to get things done. Our client was paid some overtime, but was not paid for all of the time she worked," said Jersey City, New Jersey-based Brown LLC attorney Jason Brown, one of three lawyers representing Paparella. "These verification specialists have to work off the clock to keep their jobs. They process claims, but because of the volume of those claims, it is not possible to do the work within 40 hours."
Paparella's attorneys cite Connecticut law, arguing she was entitled to be paid time and a half for all hours worked over 40 per week.
The lawsuit seeks collective certification and then class certification. A collective certification is different from a class certification in that individuals in a collective class must elect to opt into the case and take steps to join the lawsuit, whereas with class certification, all members of the class are automatically part of the lawsuit. Both classes would represent people who worked as verification specialists from Feb. 6, 2016, to February 2019.
It's not clear at this point how much overtime the company would owe his client, Brown said. "We are talking three years of damages for her, and that could be a significant amount of damages," he said.
The lawsuit seeks several remedies: actual damages, double damages, attorney fees and expenses for the class.
"It's always critical to make sure workers are paid fairly for the amount of time they put in. … Sometimes institutionally, the company implements measures they think are fair, but if they'd watched with both eyes open, they would recognize how employees are getting exploited," Brown said Thursday.
As of press time, CareCentrix had not assigned an attorney to the case. Company spokesman Vincent Grippi did not respond to request for comment Thursday.
Assisting Brown are his colleague Tony Teng and Hartford-based solo practitioner Matthew Sorokin. Sorokin referred all comments to Brown.
The case has been assigned to Judge Jeffrey Meyer.