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'I Don't Want to Die.' He needed mental health care. He found a ghost network

Ravi Coutinho bought a health insurance plan thinking it would give him access to mental health providers. But even after 21 phone calls and multiple hospitalizations, no one could find him a therapist.

Vanessa Saba for ProPublica Early one morning in February 2023, before the sun rose over Phoenix, Ravi Coutinho went on a walk and, for a brief moment, thought about hurling his body in front of a moving bus. toggle caption Webber Coutinho family Frustrating phone calls like this one began to confirm for Ravi what countless customers — and even Arizona regulators — had already discovered: Appearances could be deceiving. toggle caption Coutinho Webber family Ravi didn’t know it, but he, like millions of Americans, was trapped in a “ghost network.” As some of those people have discovered, the providers listed in an insurer’s network have either retired or died.

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