Friday, July 28, 2017

Whistleblowers: United Healthcare Hid Complaints About Medicare Advantage

Whistleblowers: United Healthcare Hid Complaints About Medicare Advantage
By Fred Schulte
Kaiser Health News
July 28, 2017

United Healthcare Services Inc., which runs the nation’s largest private Medicare Advantage insurance plan, concealed hundreds of complaints of enrollment fraud and other misconduct from federal officials as part of a scheme to collect bonus payments it didn’t deserve, a newly unsealed whistleblower lawsuit alleges.

The suit, filed by United Healthcare sales agents in Wisconsin, accuses the giant insurer of keeping a “dual set of books” to hide serious complaints about its services and of being “intentionally ineffective” at investigating misconduct by its sales staff. A federal judge unsealed the lawsuit, first filed in October 2016, on Tuesday.

The company knew of accusations that at least one sales agent forged signatures on enrollment forms and had been the subject of dozens of other misconduct complaints, according to the suit. In another case, a sales agent allegedly engaged in a “brazen kickback scheme” in which she promised iPads to people who agreed to sign up and stay with the health plan for six months, according to the suit.

Though it fired the female sales agent, United Healthcare concluded the kickback allegations against her were “inconclusive” and did not report the incident to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, according to the suit.

Asked for comment on the allegations in the suit, United Healthcare spokesman Matt Burns said: “We reject them.”...

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