Aetna L-ADR Spine Surgery Settlement: 3 Claim Deadlines

At a glance

Status

Approved, awaiting payment

Defendant

Aetna Life Insurance Company

Settlement fund

Not publicly disclosed

Claim deadline

August 31, 2026

No-proof cash option

No

Max documented payout

$55,000

Administrator

Atticus Administration

Official site

www.ladrsurgerysettlement.com

Court

U.S. District Court, Central District of California

Case number

2:19-cv-06840-AB (Hendricks), consolidated with 2:22-cv-01505-AB (Howard)

Last verified July 23, 2026

Key dates

Milestone	Date	What it means
Claim deadline	August 31, 2026	Last day to file for a payment
Opt-out (exclusion) deadline	February 17, 2026(passed)	Last day to leave the settlement and keep the right to sue
Objection deadline	February 17, 2026(passed)	Last day to object to the terms
Final approval hearing	June 5, 2026(passed)	When the judge decides whether to approve the settlement
Expected payout	Not yet scheduled	Payments are not sent until after final approval and any appeals

Where to file

Aetna Single-Level L-ADR Spine Surgery Denial Settlement (Hendricks & Howard v. Aetna) is administered by Atticus Administration. The only place to file is the official settlement website:

Verify on the official site

www.ladrsurgerysettlement.com

Administrator phone: 1-800-243-4551

Filing is free. No legitimate settlement charges a fee to file a claim.

You cannot file on RecordingLaw.com. We are an independent publisher, not the settlement administrator, and we are not affiliated with any court, agency, or defendant.

What happened

This is not a data breach. Hendricks & Howard v. Aetna Life Insurance Company is a lawsuit over health-coverage denials. It alleges Aetna, acting as the insurer or claims administrator for employer health plans governed by a federal law called ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act), denied coverage for a specific back surgery called single-level lumbar artificial disc replacement, often shortened to single-level L-ADR.

That surgery replaces a single damaged disc in the lower spine with an artificial one, as an alternative to spinal fusion. The lawsuit alleged Aetna denied these claims by treating the surgery as experimental or investigational, a policy patients say Aetna applied even when their own doctors recommended the surgery as medically necessary.

"ERISA-governed" matters here because it explains why this case is in federal court rather than before a state insurance regulator. Most employer-sponsored health plans are governed by ERISA, a federal law that controls how disputes over denied coverage get resolved and what a patient can recover.

Where the case stands now

As of July 2026, the court has granted final approval. That happened on June 5, 2026. The deadline for class members to exclude themselves from the settlement or object to its terms was February 17, 2026, and that deadline has passed. The settlement is final, and the claims process is open.

There is no aggregate cash fund tied to a single dollar figure here. Instead, the settlement provides individual relief that depends on which of three paths applies to you. The two reimbursement paths are capped at $55,000 per person. The third path, for people still covered by an Aetna ERISA plan, is a new coverage request that gets the surgery approved under the settlement terms rather than paying a capped cash amount.

Who is in the class

You are potentially covered if you were a member of an ERISA-governed health plan insured or administered by Aetna Life Insurance Company, and you were denied coverage for single-level lumbar artificial disc replacement surgery. The denial had to fall within one of two windows, depending on which underlying lawsuit covers your plan: August 7, 2016 through February 8, 2023 for the Hendricks action, or March 4, 2019 through February 8, 2023 for the Howard action.

If Aetna denied you this specific surgery within that broader window, you may be eligible for relief, though which relief path applies depends on where things stand for you today.

Three different deadlines, and they are not interchangeable

This settlement does not have one claim deadline. It has three separate relief paths, each with its own deadline. Two are reimbursement paths capped at $55,000; the third is a coverage approval rather than a cash cap. Figuring out which path applies to you is the most important step before you file anything.

If you already paid out of pocket for a single-level L-ADR surgery that Aetna denied, you can seek reimbursement for what you paid. That claim is due within 90 days of final approval, which the settlement calculates as September 29, 2026. You will need a completed claim form, your operative report or clinical records, and proof of what you paid.

If you have not yet had the surgery and you are still covered today by an Aetna-insured or Aetna-administered ERISA plan, you can submit a new coverage request instead of a reimbursement claim. That path is due within 180 days of the notice of final approval, which the settlement calculates as December 28, 2026, the latest of the three deadlines. A surgeon's attestation that the surgery is medically necessary is what triggers coverage under this path.

If you have not yet had the surgery and you are no longer covered by an Aetna ERISA plan, and you lack other coverage or the ability to enroll in a plan that would cover it, you can seek reimbursement for a future surgery once you have it. This path has the earliest deadline of the three: August 31, 2026.

Because this page's automatic key-dates display shows a single claim deadline of August 31, 2026, remember that date is only the earliest of the three paths, not necessarily yours. Match your own situation to the three paths above before you rely on any single date.

What you'll need to file

Every path requires a completed claim form. Beyond that, the documentation depends on your path. Past-surgery reimbursement needs your operative report or clinical records plus proof of payment. A new coverage request needs a treating surgeon's attestation of medical necessity. Future-surgery reimbursement needs proof that you no longer have qualifying coverage.

There is no no-proof, flat-payment option in this settlement, unlike many data-breach settlements. Every path requires supporting documentation of some kind.

Who pays the attorneys

Attorneys' fees of up to $2,556,000 were approved to be paid separately by Aetna, not deducted from what claimants recover. That is worth knowing because in many class settlements, attorney fees come out of the same fund claimants are paid from, which can shrink individual payouts. Here, that is not the structure. A claimant's award and the attorneys' fee award are not competing for the same pool of money.

How to file

Claims go through the official settlement website only, run by the administrator, Atticus Administration, which also operates a support phone line for questions. Because final approval has already been granted and the claims window is open, this is one of the more time-sensitive settlements on this site. The earliest of the three deadlines, August 31, 2026, is now roughly five weeks away.

If you're not sure which path applies to you, or you think you were denied outside this settlement

If you are unsure whether your Aetna plan denial matches the class definition, or which of the three paths fits your situation, the administrator's support line and the official settlement site are the places to ask, not a third-party "claims" site.

Because this case involves denied medical coverage, not identity theft, a credit freeze or credit monitoring does not apply here. If you believe you were denied coverage for this surgery outside the settlement's class period, or by a different insurer, the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration publishes general guidance on your right to appeal a denied ERISA health claim, which can be a starting point outside this settlement.