third therapy denial in six months from Aetna and im out of energy to keep fighting them

i need to vent because i am genuinely losing it. i have been in weekly therapy for almost two years for anxiety and PTSD from a workplace assault in 2024. i finally have a therapist i trust, i finally do not dread my sessions, i finally feel like im making real progress. and three times in the last six months Aetna has denied continuation of care on the grounds that my treatment is "not medically necessary" because i am "stable and functional."

let me explain what that means in their words. i am stable. i go to work. i show up to my appointments. i take my meds. i do the homework my therapist gives me. and because i am doing all of that, Aetna has decided i no longer need the thing that is helping me be that person. its like telling someone with diabetes that since their A1C is fine, they dont need insulin anymore. the entire point is that the treatment IS what is keeping me stable. the second i stop, the panic attacks come back, the nightmares come back, the avoidance comes back. ive lived this. i know what happens.

each appeal takes about 4-6 weeks. each time my therapist has to write a clinical justification, dig up notes, document my goals and progress, basically defend her license to a reviewer who has never met me and spends 8 minutes on my file. each time it gets approved on appeal and they pay back the sessions retroactively. so the system is: deny, force appeal, eventually pay. they are betting i will get tired and quit. and honestly i am tired. last week my therapist told me she has 11 other Aetna patients dealing with the exact same thing right now. its a policy decision being run as a "case by case" determination. and it works on people. her caseload has shrunk this year because patients give up.

i dont even know what im asking for here. i guess i just needed to say out loud that the appeals process is wearing me down faster than the actual condition is. anyone else with a major carrier doing this pattern with mental health benefits right now. is it just Aetna or are UHC and Cigna doing the same thing. i feel insane being told to prove i still need help while doing the work to need less of it.