It's been a tumultuous stretch for Minnetonka-based UnitedHealthcare and now the Wall Street Journal is reporting Friday morning that the U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation into their Medicare billing practices.
The new civil fraud investigation is examining the company’s practices for recording diagnoses that trigger extra payments to its Medicare Advantage plans, including at physician groups the insurance giant owns.
A series of articles in The Journal last year showed that Medicare paid United billions for questionable diagnoses. UnitedHealthcare responded with a statement Friday strongly denying these claims.
"The Wall Street Journal continues to report misinformation on the Medicare Advantage (MA) program," UHC says. "The government regularly reviews all MA plans to ensure compliance and we consistently perform at the industry’s highest levels on those reviews. We are not aware of the “launch” of any “new” activity as reported by the Journal. We are aware, however, that the Journal has engaged in a year-long campaign to defend a legacy system that rewards volume over keeping patients healthy and addressing their underlying conditions. Any suggestion that our practices are fraudulent is outrageous and false."
Attorneys with the Justice Department as recently as late last month interviewed medical providers named in those articles.
Earlier this week, CNBC reported that the insurance giant was offering certain employees in its benefits operations unit the option to accept buyouts if they quit by March 3, following a tumultuous year.
CNBC reported that those who don’t accept the offer will continue in either their current role or a comparable position. If the company does not meet a resignation quota through buyouts, it will lay off employees, the people said, citing an internal resource site.
Today's news comes quickly on the heels of the news that the man charged with killing the UHC CEO Brian Thomspon is due in court in New York.
Luigi Mangione's, 26, defense lawyers are expected to provide updates on the status of the case and Judge Gregory Carro could set deadlines for pretrial paperwork and possibly even a trial date.
Mangione has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism, in the Dec. 4 killing of Maple Grove resident Brian Thompson outside a midtown Manhattan hotel. The executive was ambushed and shot on a sidewalk as he walked to an investor conference.