A decade in the past, federal officers drafted a plan to discourage Medicare Advantage well being insurers from overcharging the federal government by billions of {dollars} — solely to abruptly again off amid an “uproar” from the trade, newly launched courtroom filings present.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services revealed the draft regulation in January 2014. The rule would have required well being plans, when analyzing affected person’s medical information, to determine overpayments by CMS and refund them to the federal government.
But in May 2014, CMS dropped the concept with none public clarification. Newly launched courtroom depositions present that company officers repeatedly cited concern about stress from the trade.
The 2014 resolution by CMS, and occasions associated to it, are on the heart of a multibillion-dollar Justice Department civil fraud case in opposition to UnitedHealth Group pending in federal courtroom in Los Angeles.
The Justice Department alleges the enormous well being insurer cheated Medicare out of greater than $2 billion by reviewing sufferers’ information to seek out extra diagnoses, including income whereas ignoring overcharges which may scale back payments. The firm “buried its head in the sand and did nothing but keep the money,” DOJ mentioned in a courtroom submitting.
Medicare pays well being plans increased charges for sicker sufferers however requires that the plans invoice just for circumstances which are correctly documented in a affected person’s medical information.
In a courtroom submitting, UnitedHealth Group denies wrongdoing and argues it shouldn’t be penalized for “failing to follow a rule that CMS considered a decade ago but declined to adopt.”
This month, the events within the courtroom case made public 1000’s of pages of depositions and different information that supply a uncommon glimpse contained in the Medicare company’s long-running battle to maintain the personal well being plans from taking taxpayers for a multibillion-dollar trip.
“It’s easy to dump on Medicare Advantage plans, but CMS made a complete boondoggle out of this,” mentioned Richard Lieberman, a Colorado well being knowledge analytics skilled.
Spokespeople for the Justice Department and CMS declined to remark for this text. In an e mail, UnitedHealth Group spokesperson Heather Soule mentioned the corporate’s “business practices have always been transparent, lawful and compliant with CMS regulations.”
Missed Diagnoses
Medicare Advantage insurance coverage have grown explosively lately and now enroll about 33 million members, greater than half of individuals eligible for Medicare. Along the way in which, the trade has been the goal of dozens of whistleblower lawsuits, government audits, and different investigations alleging the well being plans typically exaggerate how sick sufferers are to rake in undeserved Medicare funds — together with by doing what are known as chart evaluations, meant to seek out allegedly missed prognosis codes.
By 2013, CMS officers knew some Medicare well being plans have been hiring medical coding and analytics consultants to aggressively mine affected person information — however they doubted the company’s authority to demand that well being plans additionally search for and delete unsupported diagnoses.
The proposed January 2014 regulation mandated that chart evaluations “cannot be designed only to identify diagnoses that would trigger additional payments” to well being plans.
CMS officers backed down in May 2014 due to “stakeholder concern and pushback,” Cheri Rice, then director of the CMS Medicare plan fee group, testified in a 2022 deposition made public this month. A second CMS official, Anne Hornsby, described the trade’s response as an “uproar.”
Exactly who made the decision to withdraw the chart evaluate proposal isn’t clear from courtroom filings to date.
“The direction that we received was that the rule, the final rule, needed to include only those provisions that had wide, you know, widespread stakeholder support,” Rice testified.
“So we did not move forward then,” she mentioned. “Not because we didn’t think it was the right thing to do or the right policy, but because it had mixed reactions from stakeholders.”
The CMS press workplace declined to make Rice out there for an interview. Hornsby, who has since left the company, declined to remark.
But Erin Fuse Brown, a professor on the Brown University School of Public Health, mentioned the choice displays a sample of timid CMS oversight of the favored well being plans for seniors.
“CMS saving money for taxpayers isn’t enough of a reason to face the wrath of very powerful health plans,” Fuse Brown mentioned.
“That is extremely alarming.”
Invalid Codes
The fraud case in opposition to UnitedHealth Group, which runs the nation’s largest Medicare Advantage plan, was filed in 2011 by a former firm worker. The DOJ took over the whistleblower go well with in 2017.
DOJ alleges Medicare paid the insurer greater than $7.2 billion from 2009 by means of 2016 solely based mostly on chart evaluations; the corporate would have obtained $2.1 billion much less if it had deleted unsupported billing codes, the federal government says.
The authorities argues that UnitedHealth Group knew that many circumstances it had billed for weren’t supported by medical information however selected to pocket the overpayments. For occasion, the insurer billed Medicare practically $28,000 in 2011 to deal with a affected person for most cancers, congestive coronary heart failure, and different critical well being issues that weren’t recorded within the individual’s medical report, DOJ alleged in a 2017 submitting.
In all, DOJ contends that UnitedHealth Group ought to have deleted greater than 2 million invalid codes.
Instead, firm executives signed annual statements testifying that the billing knowledge submitted to CMS was “accurate, complete, and truthful.” Those actions violated the False Claims Act, a federal regulation that makes it unlawful to submit bogus payments to the federal government, DOJ alleges.
The advanced case has featured years of authorized jockeying, even pitting the recollections of key CMS workers members — together with a number of who’ve since departed authorities for jobs within the trade — in opposition to these of UnitedHealthcare executives.
‘Red Herring’
Court filings describe a 45-minute video convention organized by then-CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner on April 29, 2014. Tavenner testified she arrange the assembly between UnitedHealth and CMS workers on the request of Larry Renfro, a senior UnitedHealth Group govt, to debate implications of the draft rule. Neither Tavenner nor Renfro attended.
Two UnitedHealth Group executives on the decision mentioned in depositions that CMS staffers informed them the corporate had no obligation on the time to uncover inaccurate codes. One of the executives, Steve Nelson, known as it a “very clear answer” to the query. Nelson has since left the corporate.
For their half, 4 of the 5 CMS staffers on the decision mentioned in depositions that they didn’t bear in mind what was mentioned. Unlike the corporate’s group, not one of the authorities officers took detailed notes.
“All I can tell you is I remember feeling very uncomfortable in the meeting,” Rice mentioned in her 2022 deposition.
Yet Rice and one different CMS staffer mentioned they did recall reminding the executives that even with out the chart evaluate rule, the corporate was obligated to make a good-faith effort to invoice just for verified codes — or face doable penalties below the False Claims Act. And CMS officers strengthened that view in follow-up emails, in keeping with courtroom filings.
DOJ known as the flap over the ill-fated regulation a “red herring” in a courtroom submitting and alleges that when UnitedHealth requested for the April 2014 assembly, it knew its chart evaluations had been below investigation for 2 years. In addition, the corporate was “grappling with a projected $500 million budget deficit,” in keeping with DOJ.
Data Miners
Medicare Advantage plans defend chart evaluations in opposition to criticism that they do little however artificially inflate the federal government’s prices.
“Chart reviews are one of many tools Medicare Advantage plans use to support patients, identify chronic conditions, and prevent those conditions from becoming more serious,” mentioned Chris Bond, a spokesperson for AHIP, a medical insurance commerce group.
Whistleblowers have argued that the cottage industry of analytics companies and coders that sprang as much as conduct these evaluations pitched their companies as an enormous moneymaking train for well being plans — and little else.
“It was never legitimate,” mentioned William Hanagami, a California legal professional who represented whistleblower James Swoben in a 2009 case that alleged chart evaluations improperly inflated Medicare funds. In a 2016 decision, the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that well being plans should train “due diligence” to make sure they submit correct knowledge.
Since then, different insurers have settled DOJ allegations that they billed Medicare for unconfirmed diagnoses stemming from chart evaluations. In July 2023, Martin’s Point Health Plan, a Portland, Maine, insurer, paid $22,485,000 to settle whistleblower allegations that it improperly billed for circumstances starting from diabetes with problems to morbid weight problems. The plan denied any legal responsibility.
A December 2019 report by the Health and Human Services Inspector General discovered that 99% of chart evaluations added new medical diagnoses at a price to Medicare of an estimated $6.7 billion for 2017 alone.
Fred Schulte:
fschulte@kff.org,
@FredSchulte
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