New York Subpoenas Aetna and Others Over UCR Billing
I started this blog as a protest from having been screwed over by Aetna with some health insurance claims for my wife. It seems that New York is interested in how Aetna and other health insurers might be screwing patients over in the techniques they use to determine “usual, customary, and reasonable” rates of reimbursement.
From TrandingMarkets:
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has issued new subpoenas to Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET), Cigna Corp. (NYSE: CI), UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE: UNH ) and WellPoint Inc. (NYSE: WLP), and other health insurers in a broadening investigation of possible fraud costing consumers hundreds of millions of dollars.[...]
Cuomo says he believes the companies used the UnitedHealth Group-owned Ingenix to set rates, which resulted in consumers being reimbursed at unfair and unjustifiably low rates. Low reimbursements mean higher out-of-pocket costs for consumers when they choose or need physicians outside their health plans.