If you’ve received any text messages from California-based healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, you could be eligible for cash under the terms of a new settlement.
The Kaiser Foundation Health Plan agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle a class action suit filed in August 2025. That suit alleged that the healthcare company sent marketing texts to people who had already replied “stop” to opt out of receiving them.
That practice could run afoul of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991, a law protecting consumers from aggressive telemarketing and robocalls, as well as the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act. Jonathan Fried, the plaintiff who brought the suit, lived in the Miami area at the time.
Anyone who opted out of marketing texts but received more than one message from Kaiser within a 12-month period between January 21, 2021, and August 20, 2025, is eligible to be part of the settlement class.
The settlement’s final approval hearing was held this week, on January 28. Those who meet the criteria and file a valid claim can receive $75 for each marketing text Kaiser sent after it acknowledged their request to opt out. If that’s you, you can submit a claim form online or through the mail by February 12, the filing deadline.
While this one is pretty cut and dry, it’s not the only settlement Kaiser Permanente has been involved in lately. In mid-January, Kaiser agreed to pay out $46 million to settle allegations that its website and app included tracking code that shared patient health and personal data with third parties.
Earlier this month, Kaiser also agreed to pay $556 million in a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice over allegations that it fraudulently billed the government for conditions that patients didn’t have. Kaiser provides health insurance and care for 12.6 million people across the country.
“More than half of our nation’s Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, and the government expects those who participate in the program to provide truthful and accurate information,” Brett Shumate, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said of the settlement.
The Justice Department accused the health provider of bringing in around $1 billion between 2009 and 2018, by adding on diagnoses to Medicare Advantage patients’ charts. In a press release issued earlier this month, Kaiser emphasized that the settlement does not amount to an admission of “wrongdoing or liability” and was chosen to avoid a longer litigation process.
“Multiple major health plans have faced similar government scrutiny over Medicare Advantage risk adjustment standards and practices, reflecting industrywide challenges in applying these requirements,” the healthcare consortium wrote.