UnitedHealth Group said it hasn’t been notified by the Department of Justice (DOJ) of a supposed criminal investigation and dismissed the Wall Street Journal report as “deeply irresponsible.”
The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported that the DOJ is investigating UnitedHealth Group for possible criminal Medicare fraud related to its Medicare Advantage business. The exclusive is based on information from “people familiar with the matter” but the DOJ has not gone on record to confirm that there has been an active probe.
The newspaper said the investigation is focused on the company’s Medicare Advantage business practices. The news about the investigation led to UnitedHealth’s stock to drop 16 percent this morning, Barron's reported. Shares have been down 50 percent in the last 23 days, according to Barron's.
But UnitedHealth Group published a statement on Wednesday in response to the story that it stands by the integrity of its Medicare Advantage program. “We have not been notified by the Department of Justice of the supposed criminal investigation reported, without official attribution, in the Wall Street Journal,” the company said. “The WSJ’s reporting is deeply irresponsible, as even it admits that the “exact nature of the potential criminal allegations is unclear.”
The Wall Street Journal has published several articles over the last year about UnitedHealth, including an antitrust investigation, a report that the company is one of several Medicare Advantage insurers that had been paid billions for diseases patients never had, a civil fraud investigation into its Medicare billing practices, and a report that UnitedHealth was one of the insurers that received extra Medicare payments because patients seen by its physicians had a spike in “sickness” scores when they moved from traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage.
The investigations come amid an incredibly difficult year for UnitedHealth. Late last year, its chief executive Brian Thompson, who oversaw the group’s health insurance business, was murdered and its payment systems fell victim to a cyberattack. This week, UnitedHealth Group announced its CEO Andrew Witty has stepped down for personal reasons and would be replaced by its former CEO Stephen J. Hemsley.