UnitedHealth stock has fallen precipitously in the last few months. And, its stock continues to fall with new charges of illegal conduct against it. This time, The Guardian is alleging that UnitedHealth made extra payments to nursing homes to keep its Medicare Advantage enrollees from being readmitted to the hospital. The less care UnitedHealth enrollees receive, the more money UnitedHealth generates for its shareholders.
According to The Guardian, UnitedHealth paid nursing homes bonuses when they did not transfer residents requiring urgent and emergency care to hospitals. UnitedHealth placed company health care workers in the nursing homes in an effort to prevent enrollees needing hospital care from getting it, saving money for the company.
The Guardian’s evidence for UnitedHealth’s betrayal of its duty to provide its Medicare Advantage enrollees with medically necessary care includes thousands of enrollee medical records, corporate records, conversations with nursing home employees working for UnitedHealth and two whistleblower declarations.
For its part, UnitedHealth claims that the Guardian’s allegations have “significant factual inaccuracies.” Good luck fighting this one, UnitedHealth.
In the past, whistleblowers have charged UnitedHealth with delaying and denying its Medicare Advantage enrollees medically necessary skilled nursing care and rehabilitation care. UnitedHealth has used artificial intelligence to make sweeping denials, against the interests of its patients, according to former UnitedHealth staff.
The government has charged UnitedHealth with overcharging Medicare for its Medicare Advantage enrollees to the tune of as much as tens of billions of dollars a year. UnitedHealth adds diagnosis codes to enrollees’ medical records, which generate larger payments to the company. But, UnitedHealth does not provide additional services to its enrollees with these additional codes.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- UnitedHealth overbills the VA by hundreds of millions of dollars
- Senator Grassley takes on UnitedHealth Medicare Advantage overpayments
- UnitedHealth physicans help boost insurers’ Medicare payments
- UnitedHealth, CVS and Cigna helped fuel opioid crisis
- Hospitals, physicians and pharmacies left unpaid after a UnitedHealth cyberattack
