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UnitedHealth sued by U.S.
government over Medicare charges
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[February 17, 2017]
(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice
Department has joined a whistleblower lawsuit against UnitedHealth Group
Inc that claims the country's largest health insurer and its units and
affiliates overcharged Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars, a law
firm representing the whistleblower said on Thursday.
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 "We reject these more than five-year-old claims and will contest
them vigorously," UnitedHealth spokesman Matthew Burns said in a
statement.
The lawsuit, filed in 2011 and unsealed on Thursday, alleges
UnitedHealth Group overcharged Medicare by claiming the federal
health insurance program's members nationwide were sicker than they
were, according to the law firm Constantine Cannon LLP.
The Justice Department has also joined in allegations against
WellMed Medical Management Inc, a Texas-based healthcare company
UnitedHealth bought in 2011.
The lawsuit by whistleblower Benjamin Poehling, a former
UnitedHealth executive, has been kept under seal in federal court in
Los Angeles while the Justice Department investigated the claims for
the past five years. Constantine Cannon posted the lawsuit online
when it was unsealed on Thursday. (http://bit.ly/2lQTOh8)
No total damages were specified in the lawsuit.
(Corrects last name to "Poehling" from "Phoeling" in paragraph 5)
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(Reporting by Akankshita Mukhopadhyay and Laharee Chatterjee in
Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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