A 3-judge arbitration panel in Tampa, Florida, has ordered UnitedHealthcare to pay $10.8 million to a TeamHealth clinician group for underpayments from 2017 till 2020.
Based mostly in Knoxville, TeamHealth employs greater than 15,000 affiliated healthcare professionals and superior observe clinicians in quite a lot of care, together with emergency medication, hospital medication, essential care, anesthesiology, orthopedic surgical procedure, basic surgical procedure, obstetrics, acute behavioral well being, post-acute care, post-acute behavioral well being and ambulatory care.
“United persists in exploiting susceptible sufferers and refuses to adequately pay suppliers, regardless of having confronted sanctions, jury awards, and settlement funds of some half a billion {dollars},” stated Dr. Jay Mesrobian, TeamHealth Nationwide Medical Director and Chief Scientific Officer in a information launch.
In keeping with the information launch, the panel discovered that UnitedHealthcare (UHC) had paid TeamHealth physicians 30% of what they have been owed as “honest cost” for his or her care.
The lawsuit is one in all 9 circumstances all through the nation that TeamHealth has introduced in opposition to UHC for alleged underpayments. The opposite eight circumstances are nonetheless ongoing.
Regardless of the panel’s determination, UHC doesn’t view the panel’s ruling as a complete loss. TeamHealth was initially looking for $30 million however the panel solely ordered the insurance coverage big to pay $10.8 million, stated a consultant who declined to be named.
“The panel appropriately acknowledged the $30 million-plus TeamHealth was looking for was undeserving and awarded it solely a fraction,” the UHC consultant stated in an electronic mail. “It additionally dominated that TeamHealth’s implied contract and unjust enrichment causes of motion had no benefit.”
Additional, the consultant forwarded a press release that declared that TeamHealth has unrealistic expectations for doctor pay.
“TeamHealth continues to make use of litigation to distract from the actual motive it not participates in our community; it expects to be paid double and even triple the median charge we pay different physicians offering the identical companies. TeamHealth’s actions are driving up the price of healthcare for everybody,” the assertion stated.
The consultant identified that the panel of judges denied TeamHealth’s implied contract and unjust enrichment causes of motion. Additionally, they rejected TeamHealth’s request for extra immediate pay penalties the day earlier than Thanksgiving, the consultant stated.
In the meantime, TeamHealth doesn’t imagine the combat isn’t over.
“This judgment displays United’s ongoing, intensive wrongdoing that places their billions of {dollars} in file income forward of sufferers’ well-being and the U.S. healthcare system. We’ll proceed to combat United till they modify course and begin pretty compensating suppliers,” the corporate stated in a information launch.
The contentious authorized battle between the 2 firms started with a separate case wherein a Las Vegas jury in late 2021 awarded $60 million to TeamHealth. That award included punitive damages on prime of thousands and thousands in compensatory damages for UHC’s underpayments on 1000’s of claims for emergency remedy.
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