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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.
Primarily based in Knoxville, TeamHealth employs greater than 15,000 affiliated healthcare professionals and superior apply clinicians in quite a lot of care, together with emergency medication, hospital medication, vital 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 response to the information launch, the panel discovered that UnitedHealthcare (UHC) had paid TeamHealth physicians 30% of what they had been owed as “truthful fee” for his or her care.
The lawsuit is one in every of 9 instances all through the nation that TeamHealth has introduced towards UHC for alleged underpayments. The opposite eight instances are nonetheless ongoing.
Regardless of the panel’s resolution, UHC doesn’t view the panel’s ruling as a complete loss. TeamHealth was initially searching for $30 million however the panel solely ordered the insurance coverage large to pay $10.8 million, stated a consultant who declined to be named.
“The panel appropriately acknowledged the $30 million-plus TeamHealth was searching for was undeserving and awarded it solely a fraction,” the UHC consultant stated in an e-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 true cause it now not participates in our community; it expects to be paid double and even triple the median price we pay different physicians offering the identical providers. 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 shouldn’t be over.
“This judgment displays United’s ongoing, intensive wrongdoing that places their billions of {dollars} in document earnings 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 corporations started with a separate case by which a Las Vegas jury in late 2021 awarded $60 million to TeamHealth. That award included punitive damages on prime of tens of millions in compensatory damages for UHC’s underpayments on hundreds of claims for emergency remedy.
Photograph: photovs, Getty Photos
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