Previous Posts
- Deaths Associated with Gardasil Increased in 2008
- Physicians Often Fail to Inform Patients of Abnorm...
- Does Fish Oil, Vitamin D Lower Risk of Cancer or H...
- President Obama Signs Bill Giving the FDA the Powe...
- NYC Hospital Suspected in Death Cover- Up
- Promising New Liver Cancer Treatment in Clinical T...
- Pharmacist Indicted for Health Care Fraud, Identit...
- Nestle Recalls Cookie Dough Products
- Former Pfizer Manager Sentenced for Bextra Off-Lab...
- Group Threatens Suit against Bayer for False Adver...
Click Here to View
Our Other Site
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Faulty Insurance Database Overcharged Patients for Healthcare
This week congressional investigators announced that two-thirds of the health insurance industry used a faulty database, which in turned cost patients when seeing doctors outside of the insurance network billions in inflated bills.
The database operated by Ingenix, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, agreed in January to pay $350 million to settle allegations that i
Despite paying $350 million, UnitedHealth admits no wrong with how the Ingenix was run, agrees to close the database, and help pay for a new database operated by a nonprofit group. Nearly 20 regional and national insurers also used Ingenix data including
Congressional investigators found that companies deliberately skewed data to underestimate the costs of medical services, which left the patients paying more in out-of-pocket expenses.
“The result of this practice is that American consumers have paid billions of dollars for health care services that their insurance companies should have paid,” according to the report of the Senate Commerce Committee’s investigative staff.
For more information please see: http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=fa6a7cdf-001b-470a-b2c0-175755fff152&Month=6&Year=2009
Labels: aetna, cigna, health insurance, Ingenix, senate, UntiedHealth, wellpoint
posted by
Jessica
at
8:08 AM
<< Home