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Court tentatively approves legal settlement between AMA, UnitedHealth Group
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A federal court preliminarily approved the $350 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Medical Association and other plaintiffs against UnitedHealth Group, the AMA announced in a press release.
In the suit originally filed in 2000, the AMA, Missouri Medical Society, New York State Medical Society and other entities asserted that UnitedHealth Group colluded with others to underpay physicians for out-of-network services. The plaintiffs sought relief for physicians who were underpaid because of UnitedHealth Group’s use of a database operated by Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary.
In 2008, the New York Attorney General confirmed that the database was rigged to enable insurers to underpay out-of-network physicians, the release said.
A separate but related agreement between UnitedHealth and the New York Attorney General called for replacement of the faulty database and operation of a replacement database by FAIR Health, a research network run by Syracuse University, the release said.
In the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Hon. D.J. McKenna is expected to preside at a later hearing on final approval of the settlement.
“The court’s approval is an important step in finalizing a settlement that recognizes UnitedHealth’s flawed payment scheme resulted in significant damages to physicians who provided out-of-network care to patients enrolled with UnitedHealth,” AMA Immediate Past President Nancy H. Nielsen, MD, said in the release. “Years of litigation and tireless advocacy from the AMA and organized medicine have exposed the industry-wide insurer scheme and paved the way for a more equitable way to set payments for out-of-network care.”