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The
Wall Street Journal said federal officials have launched a civil
fraud investigation into how the company records diagnoses that
lead to extra payments for its Medicare Advantage, or MA, plans.
Those are privately run versions of the government’s Medicare
coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and over.
The paper, citing anonymous sources, said the probe focused on
billing practices in recent months.
UnitedHealth said it wasn't aware of the start of any new
activity as the paper reported. It criticized the Journal's
report and said in a statement posted on its website, “Any
suggestion that our practices are fraudulent is outrageous and
false.”
The company’s UnitedHealthcare business covers more than 7.8
million people as the nation’s largest provider of Medicare
Advantage plans. The business has been under pressure in recent
quarters due to rising care use and rate cuts.
The Journal's report “adds to a growing worry that expanded
oversight around the insurers, particularly in the MA program,
could pressure business practices, earnings, and investor
sentiment,” Leerink Partners analyst Whit Mayo said in a
research note.
Shares of the Minnetonka, Minnesota, company fell more than 6%
Friday. Shares of other prominent Medicare Advantage insurers
like Humana slipped while broader indexes also fell.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. stock has been in a rut since early
December, when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally
shot in midtown Manhattan on his way to the company’s annual
investor meeting. A 26-year-old suspect, Luigi Mangione, who led
authorities on a five-day manhunt, is scheduled to be in court
Friday for the first time since his December arraignment on
state murder and terror charges.
Company shares shed more than $100 in value in the weeks
following Thompson’s death, as the shooting gave rise to an
outpouring of grievances about insurance companies.
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