Judge: UnitedHealth shareholders can comb 12 years of alleged Medicare fraud records

A Delaware judge ruled UnitedHealth Group's shareholders can rifle through 12 years of the payer's records to support allegations UnitedHealth directors partook in Medicare fraud, Bloomberg Law reports.

Chancery Court Judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves' Feb. 28 ruling comes after investors, including two pension funds and one bank, sued UnitedHealth in 2017 after the insurer rejected information requests. The information is related to a 2011 whistle-blower lawsuit accusing UnitedHealth of filing thousands of false claims to the Medicare program.

UnitedHealth spokesperson Matthew Burns told Bloomberg Law the company plans to appeal Ms. Reeves' ruling, stating, "Many of these meritless claims were already rejected in other proceedings."

The rejections took place on Feb. 26 when the Justice Department cast aside much of a False Claims Act lawsuit alleging UnitedHealth used incorrect risk scores to inflate Medicare Advantage payments.

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