UnitedHealth says it is facing DOJ investigation over Medicare billing practices

UnitedHealth Group revealed Thursday it is facing a Justice Department probe implicit its security arm's Medicare billing practices.

In a securities filing, the institution said it has started complying with ceremonial transgression and civilian requests from the DOJ. UnitedHealth besides said it has launched a third-party reappraisal of its concern policies and show metrics.

The institution said it "has afloat assurance successful its practices and is committed to moving cooperatively with the Department passim this process."

UnitedHealth Group shares dropped astir 4% successful premarket trading Thursday.

It comes aft the Wall Street Journal reported in May that the Department of Justice is conducting a transgression probe into the health-care elephantine implicit imaginable Medicare fraud. In effect astatine the time, the institution said it stands "by the integrity of our Medicare Advantage program."

In July, the Journal also reported that the DOJ interviewed respective doctors astir UnitedHealth's practices and whether they felt pressured to taxable claims for definite conditions that bolstered payments from the Medicare Advantage programme to the company. 

That marked the 2nd clip this twelvemonth that the insurer's Medicare Advantage concern has travel nether national scrutiny. The Journal besides reported successful February that the DOJ is conducting a civilian probe into whether the institution inflated diagnoses to trigger other payments to its Medicare Advantage plans. 

But successful March, UnitedHealth moved a measurement person to ending a yearslong ineligible conflict with the DOJ that began with a whistleblower who alleged the institution illegally withheld astatine slightest $2 cardinal done the Medicare Advantage program. A peculiar maestro assigned to the lawsuit by the justice issued a proposal successful favour of UnitedHealth, saying the DOJ lacked evidence. 

UnitedHealthcare's Medicare and status segment, which includes the Medicare Advantage business, is UnitedHealth Group's largest gross driver, raking successful $139 cardinal successful income past year.

The update successful the probe comes aft a tumultuous past twelvemonth for UnitedHealthcare, the nation's largest and astir almighty backstage wellness insurer. Shares of UnitedHealthcare's genitor company, UnitedHealth Group, are down much than 42% for the twelvemonth aft it suspended its 2025 forecast amid skyrocketing aesculapian costs, announced the astonishment exit of erstwhile CEO Andrew Witty and grappled with the reported probe into its Medicare Advantage business. 

The company's 2024 wasn't immoderate easier, marked by a historical cyberattack and the torrent of nationalist blowback aft the execution of UnitedHealthcare's CEO Brian Thompson.

-- CNBC's Bertha Coombs contributed to this report.