You should contact the AG. There’s a major problem with how insurance companies (don’t) cover mental health care - despite being required to treat mental health needs the same as other conditions.
Kaiser’s mental health care providers have been striking because of untenable workloads that are hurting patients - because they end up waiting months to see someone, unless they want to pay out of pocket and go outside Kaiser. It’s so bad that even in urgent and emergency situations, patients are left without care. The state is investigating Kaiser for this.
It sounds like Blue Shield may be doing a version of what Kaiser is doing. If people have to go outside of the network, Blue Shield doesn’t have to cover it.