To the members of UNITE HERE Local 2, the hospitality workers' union representing California Marriott employees,

Be advised: your employer's approach to workers' comp is sloppy…at best.

California law already gives Marriott significant control over your care when you're hurt on the job. Its Medical Provider Network (MPN) vendor determines which doctors can treat you, and through its Utilization Review vendor, Marriott can deny, modify, or delay the treatment that those doctors recommend.

California’s comp system is so opaque that it can be nearly impossible to determine who makes decisions about your care. However, we can see how Marriott's bill review and payment vendors (including Genex, Advanet, Paradigm, and ECHO) treat the doctors who treat you.

Marriott vendors can make it incredibly difficult for doctors to get paid. As a result, providers undertake extraordinary administrative work (and potential financial risk) when treating Marriott employees.

We recently documented how a single $145 bill turned into a 4-month nightmare involving four different Marriott vendors: one paid the wrong company, another sent the check to the wrong address, and a third demanded that the doctor send paperwork to a company with which the doctor has no relationship.

When we called Marriott's billing vendor, Genex, they erroneously reported that the bill was not on file, claiming incorrectly that Marriott does not accept electronic bills (e-bills), in violation of state law.

Providers’ struggles with Marriott are not a recent development. In 2022, we filed formal Audit Complaints with the California Division of Workers’ Compensation (CA DWC) reporting Marriott's failure to comply with state payment regulations. Four years later, Marriott maintains a grade of ‘F’ for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) compliance, and continues to violate payment requirements.

If this is how Marriott manages payment for treatment, how well can it manage the treatment itself?

If Marriott's vendors can't comply with state laws and regulations or give a straight answer over multiple phone calls, what happens when your doctor needs Marriott to authorize your treatment? What happens when you're waiting for approval on surgery, physical therapy, or medication?

Mitchell Demands Proof of Genex Incompetence

After daisyNews reported that Genex incorrectly tells providers that Marriott does not accept e-bills (a critical legal requirement), a Mitchell representative called daisyBill requesting proof.

Mitchell, Genex, and Coventry are all part of the same company, Enlyte. Mitchell's "Quality Analyst" called us demanding a reference number for the call in which Genex made the incorrect e-billing claim.

They didn't need a reference number. Mitchell could have called Genex themselves and asked the same question we did. But since they asked, here's the evidence.

Below is a call log detailing each time a daisyBill representative called Genex to inquire about a bill for an injured Marriott employee. We called Genex 13 times and spoke to multiple representatives. The results:

• 6 times, a Genex representative either claimed that Marriott does not accept e-bills, reported having only a mailing address for Marriott, or was unsure if Marriott accepts e-bills.
• 7 times, a Genex representative reported that Marriott accepts e-bills but could not provide the Payer ID that providers need to actually send those e-bills.

Notice that in our call log it’s only after we published our article that Genex stopped claiming that Marriott doesn't accept e-bills. But they still couldn't provide the e-billing information providers actually need.

Why This Matters to Marriott Employees

These calls refer only to a specific issue: e-billing. But this is exactly the kind of administrative chaos that drives doctors out of workers' comp entirely and derail care for injured workers.

While daisyBill does not have direct insight into how Marriott's vendors manage the actual care of injured employees, we see firsthand how ineptly they treat the doctors who deliver that care.

When doctors can't get paid, they stop treating injured workers. For a Marriott employee injured on the job, this administrative buffoonery isn't just annoying; it could be life and health-altering.

Organized labor should demand efficiency, transparency, and above all, competence in how employers manage workers' comp. Self-insured employers like Marriott are no exception. How Marriott handles injured workers' claims should be on the table in every contract negotiation.

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