North Cypress (Texas) Medical Center requested that a federal judge nix Aetna's claims in a lawsuit stating the health insurer paid too little on thousands of medical claims, according to Law360.
The medical claims were allegedly underpaid and submitted under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. In a motion filed Sept. 11, the medical center argued two favorable court rulings could allow for dismissal of Aetna's claims. In July 2015, a Southern District of Texas court said the case overlapped another case involving the parties.
In February 2015, Aetna brought a lawsuit against North Cypress alleging the physician-owned community hospital engaged in an illegal kickback scheme and used deceptive billing practices that led Aetna to overpay the hospital by as much as $120 million. In August of the same year, North Cypress denied the allegations brought against it.
Karen Hinton, a spokesperson for North Cypress, told Becker's Hospital Review at the time that the hospital believed Aetna's lawsuit was part of a "scheme to sue out-of-network providers throughout the nation to coerce them into financially burdensome in-network contracts with Aetna."
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