In 2024, Tammy Pallot, a lay leader from the Diocese of Atlanta, wrote a blog entry for the House of Deputies on “The Urgent Need for Mental Health Awareness in the Church.”
Pallot, who chairs the General Convention Task Force on Individuals with Mental Illness, noted that one in four people who consider themselves religious turn to clergy for help. “We must equip our clergy with the necessary skills to identify signs and symptoms of mental health issues and to respond effectively to these indicators,” she wrote.
The task force was mandated to develop resources to help clergy and laity interact compassionately and competently with people experiencing mental health challenges.
But what happens when clergy and lay leaders need mental health assistance?
Mary Grace Puszka, a communications expert who served with Episcopal Ministries of Long Island and the Diocese of Long Island’s communications team, appreciates the church’s openness in discussing the subject. She practices what the church preaches—she seeks help.
Puszka, now at Episcopal Divinity School in New York City, uses her Episcopal Church Medical Trust insurance for out-of-network therapy. She knows other church workers who do the same and acknowledges the convenience the insurance—managed by the Church Pension Group (CPG)—once offered. CPG is the financial services organization serving the Episcopal Church.
“You’d submit these claims and there was a way to view it online,” Puszka said. Another church worker, employed by a Province II diocese and covered by the trust for over a decade, said she was able to submit out-of-network claims directly to Anthem, a plan offered by the medical trust, and receive reimbursement “within about a month.” That speed meant she could pay her therapist promptly.
That changed in 2025, when the medical trust began working with Quantum Health, a care navigation provider. According to CPG, the shift to Quantum was meant to give members insured under Anthem and Cigna a single point of contact for all healthcare needs.
“We were all asked to mail our claims instead of processing them online,” said Puszka, who is on the trust’s HSA plan. For the Province II worker, Quantum’s entry led to a “significantly worse” experience.
“I went from being able to submit online in a very easy form that was direct deposited back to me,” she said, to mailing a paper form across the country and waiting up to 45 business days for processing—followed by a paper check.
She eventually received payment for two earlier claims, but both amounts were wrong. Though Quantum acknowledged the errors, it took another three to four months to correct them.
The Living Church spoke with Puszka and two other church workers, who asked not to be named, about the difficulties they’ve faced in receiving reimbursements since the changes took effect. All three are actively receiving out-of-network therapy they described as critical for their well-being and church work. One said therapy helped reverse years of physical symptoms caused by poor mental health.
They all clarified to TLC that they were speaking in their personal capacities and not on behalf of the church or their offices.
In addition to introducing Quantum, the medical trust began using third-party claims administrators: AmeriBen for Anthem and Allegiance for Cigna. “These changes were aimed at creating a more seamless, high-touch, and innovative experience,” CPG said in a statement.
But many members reported the opposite. Complaints circulated on social media, and on July 28, nearly 600 people joined a CPG webinar about Quantum. Frank Armstrong, CPG’s chief operations officer, fielded questions and responded to TLC via email.
Armstrong said the shift to Quantum followed “extensive due diligence.”
Toward a ‘Seamless’ Experience
In December 2024, Armstrong announced in a promotional video that CPG had found a solution “to simplify and really improve our members’ healthcare journeys.” He then introduced Quantum, saying its personnel would help those insured by the medical trust maximize their benefits, including behavioral health benefits.
According to Armstrong, CPG’s decision to pursue a healthcare navigation solution was driven by client needs and its commitment to the Denominational Health Plan, which offers healthcare coverage to members—those who work in the Episcopal Church, from national ministries to parishes and affiliated organizations, including schools and nonprofits.
Armstrong said part of the group’s due diligence involved interviewing three peer denominations, from whom it received favorable feedback about Quantum.
Those three denominations are connected with the Church Benefits Association, a network of faith-based benefits professionals representing more than 50 member organizations, managing over $100 billion in net assets. CPG is a member of the benefits association, and Quantum is a partner of the group’s purchasing coalition, which allows smaller member organizations to secure economies of scale in their benefits selection.
But Armstrong clarified that the purchasing coalition was not yet established when CPG decided to work with the Ohio-based company.
The key issue raised by Puszka and the two church workers TLC spoke with concerns the speed and professionalism in processing claims. They pointed to Quantum as the problem—especially since the delays began after the shift to the company, when its care advisers became their point of contact.
“I mean, we have a system that worked for claim submissions and have always appreciated what I think has been quality health insurance,” said one church worker who serves in a national ministry. He said he had no reason to question the shift to Quantum—until he realized he was not being reimbursed for claims, which at one point built up to over $1,000.
Puszka and both church workers said the reasons for the delays kept changing as they followed up—adding to the tedium of the process.
“My personal experience has just been like inconsistent answers depending on who you’re talking to,” Puszka said. “I’m hearing over and over again that … I’m six weeks into a process.”
She added, “I can’t spend hour after hour after hour, you know, every single week on the phone with Quantum.”
Both the Province II church worker and the national ministry worker share the same frustration. One said she feels like Quantum is “making up some new excuse as to why it’s not working” and added that while trying to be reimbursed, she would be on the phone with Quantum every other week—“sometimes once a week, trying to sort it out.” TLC spoke with her in mid-July; she had yet to receive a claim from April.
“My frustration lies with the fact that you know … we’re all operating in pretty difficult times,” she said. “Like, it’s a difficult time to be in this country. And this thing that worked before and now no longer works just adds stress and strain where there doesn’t need to be stress or strain.”
The stress, strain, and complaints were not absent during the webinar—if one counted the number of discombobulated emojis floating on the screen while Armstrong was speaking. For some church workers, their trust of CPG was compromised.
One told TLC: “You get this whole sense of, are they doing it on purpose?”
The Disconnect and Solution
Armstrong’s body language in the webinar and his answers to TLC reveal contrition. He recognized the delays and errors—particularly regarding the out-of-network claims process—and said CPG is working with vendors to make the necessary corrections. The organization is also working on an expedited plan to reprocess all outstanding out-of-network claims and enact “immediate enhancements to the current out-of-network claims process.”
He said that AmeriBen, which processes claims for those insured with Anthem, will complete processing payments of all outstanding claims by the end of September, if not sooner. There will also be a web-based solution this year from AmeriBen similar to the pre-2025 setup.
The CPG official attributed the issues members have been facing to “unexpected and unintended implementation difficulties,” but said it would be incorrect to suggest the delays were intentional.
“We have been acting with positive intent and working hard to resolve these issues as quickly as possible to the best outcome for our clients,” he said. “Unfortunately, it has taken longer than we expected to resolve them, and again, we apologize for the delay.”
Quantum, which has been on the receiving end of members’ frustrations and is the entity often held responsible for the claims backlog, clarified its role.
“While Quantum Health walks alongside members to help them navigate their healthcare journey … we are not the claims processor for Church Pension Group,” said Cat Miller, Quantum’s vice president for communications. Miller acknowledged the roles of Anthem and Cigna—which are now also being handled by third-party administrators.
She said that Quantum reviews coverage and issues determinations.
Within the Episcopal Church, Quantum has satisfied customers, like Jamie Martin-Currie, who heads St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in the Diocese of Texas. Martin-Currie describes herself as being a “huge fan of Episcopal Medical Trust” and has been on its insurance for 20 years, though for a time she held a job that didn’t use the medical trust.
By the time she returned to the insurance, Quantum was already in place, and the switch was easy for her and her employees, with the company serving as a concierge for her and her 11 staff members’ healthcare needs. She said that even for prescriptions, the company helped her get set up with Express Scripts.
“My doctor’s office didn’t know that,” Martin-Currie said. “They could dig behind and see everything, and I think having that [relationship] is really an asset.”
She clarified that the school joined the medical trust with Quantum already in place.
The Rev. Sandy Webb, rector of Church of the Holy Communion in Memphis, also commended Quantum. He said that before the shift, he had to call Anthem Blue Cross and a health advocate when he had billing issues. In a recent case, it was the healthcare navigator that called him, and he was able to resolve a billing concern within a single call. Webb, who was part of the CPG Client Council—which provides feedback to the organization on its services—and the General Convention Task Force to Advise the Church on Denominational Health Plans, has yet to have a concern with claims.
“I have not run into that particular issue, so I can’t speak to that exactly, but I certainly honor their experience,” Webb said, referring to those dealing with delayed reimbursements and similar out-of-network claim problems.
Puszka and the two church workers don’t seem to suggest an overhaul—just a return to how the system usually worked in the past.
“It was working without Quantum. Now it’s not working,” one of the church workers said. “But you know it’s clearly more complicated than that.” He added that with AmeriBen in the mix, along with Quantum, the system has many different parties involved. “They’re pinpointing at each other as the problem, but then the person who’s supposed to be getting access to healthcare doesn’t get access.”
“Quantum is our point of contact,” he added. “So, are they the messenger of the problem, or are they the problem? I don’t know.”
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
