For decades, MHN sat between an insurance card and a therapist's door. Then Health Net moved much of the machinery under its own name - a case study in what happens when a useful company becomes infrastructure.
It started as a chain of psychiatric hospitals in Georgia. Fifty-plus years later, Magellan Health decides how millions of Americans get their mental health care approved - and after a $2.2 billion round trip through Centene, it is about to be on its own again.