Countdown's Rundown on United Health Group and Stephen Hemsley

Just one example of why insurance companies should not be allowed to dominate the health care deilivery system in the United States.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• accounting
• AMA
• Andrew Cuomo
• Arthur Anderson
• Enron
• Insurance Companies
• lawsuits
• Lewin Group
• medical scandals
• SEC
• Stephen Hemsley
• United Health Group

[SunnyKid975]

Ingenix parent company UnitedHealth has already settled a similar lawsuit for $350 million. In order to avoid prosecution by the state of New York, the company also agreed to establish a new database under the supervision of that state's attorney general. UnitedHealth and Aetna have each agreed to contribute $20 million toward this database, while WellPoint has agreed to pay $10 million.

[SunnyKid975]

The lawsuits, targeting insurance companies including Aetna, Cigna and WellPoint, allege that the insurers used unfair figures from a database produced by a company called Ingenix in order to set reimbursement rates for doctors who were not part of their health insurance networks. According to the plaintiffs, the use of a standardized database disregarded the different costs of operating in different parts of the country, and unfairly caused excess costs to be passed on to patients.

[SunnyKid975]

The AMA and a number of state medical associations have filed class action lawsuits against a number of health insurance companies, accusing them of engaging in price fixing in order to underpay doctors and increase the charges paid by patients.