That was quick.
Days after filing a notice in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas that it planned to appeal a court ruling to recalculate UnitedHealth’s Medicare Advantage Star ratings, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has withdrawn the notice to appeal.
On Friday, Acting U.S. Attorney Abe McGlothin Jr. notified the court that it was dropping the appeal.
No reason was given for the grounds for the appeal nor the reason to withdraw the appeal.
In November, UnitedHealth won a partial victory in its lawsuit against CMS claiming that its quality score was downgraded on an arbitrary and capricious assessment of how its call center handled a single phone call from a CMS test caller that lasted less than 10 minutes. Judge Jeremy Kernodle of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas ordered the agency to recalculate UnitedHealthcare’s Star rating without consideration of the disputed call.
A CMS spokesperson told Modern Healthcare in a statement that it wouldn’t comment on matters that were not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health in the short-term.