Shares of UnitedHealth Group slipped Thursday after the health care giant said it was under a Department of Justice investigation.<\/p>\n
The company said it has started complying with both criminal and civil requests from federal investigators and it was cooperating with them.<\/p>\n
\u201c(UnitedHealth) has a long record of responsible conduct and effective compliance,\u201d the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal said federal officials had launched a civil fraud investigation into how the company records diagnoses that lead to extra payments for its Medicare Advantage, or MA, plans. Those are privately run versions of the government\u2019s Medicare coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and over.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s UnitedHealthcare business covers more than 8 million people as the nation\u2019s largest provider of Medicare Advantage plans. The business\u00a0has been under pressure<\/a>\u00a0in recent quarters due to rising care use and rate cuts.<\/p>\n The Journal said in February, citing anonymous sources, that the probe focused on billing practices in recent months.<\/p>\n The paper then said earlier this month that a federal criminal health care-fraud unit was investigating how the company used doctors and nurses to gather diagnoses that bolster payments.<\/p>\n UnitedHealth Group Inc. said that it reached out to the Justice Department \u201cafter reviewing media reports about investigations into certain aspects of the company\u2019s participation in the Medicare program.\u201d<\/p>\n UnitedHealth runs one of the nation\u2019s largest health insurance and pharmacy benefits management businesses. It also operates a growing Optum business that provides care and technology support.<\/p>\n UnitedHealth raked in more than $400 billion in revenue last year as the third-largest company in the Fortune 500. Last year, its share price topped $630 to reach a new all-time high.<\/p>\n But company shares have mostly shed value since December, when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson\u00a0was fatally shot<\/a>\u00a0in midtown Manhattan on his way to the company\u2019s annual investor meeting. A 26-year-old suspect,\u00a0Luigi Mangione<\/a>, has been charged in connection with the shooting.<\/p>\n In April, shares plunged after the company\u00a0cut its forecast<\/a>\u00a0due to a spike in health care use. A month later, former CEO\u00a0Andrew Witty resigned<\/a>\u00a0and the company withdrew its forecast.<\/p>\n The stock price slipped another 2%, or $5.12, to $287.39 Thursday morning. That represents a 54% drop from its all-time high.<\/p>\n UnitedHealth will report its second-quarter results next Tuesday.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shares of UnitedHealth Group slipped Thursday after the health care giant said it was under a Department of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":89254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-89253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114909543377984622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}