A recently unsealed Federal Whistleblower lawsuit filed under the US False Claims Act claims that UnitedHealth may have improperly cost Medicare hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars over a more than a decade. The Department of Justice is intervening in the whistleblower’s claims about improper coding and inflated billing but is not intervening in the other claims.
The unsealed allegations were first filed in federal court in Los Angeles in 2011, however remained under federal seal until recently. The case was initiated under the False Claims Act by Benjamin Poehling, a finance director for UnitedHealth Group subsidiary UnitedHealthcare Medicare and Retirement.
"The federal government's decision to join this case after a 5-year investigation demonstrates the gravity of these allegations," said Mary A. Inman, a partner in Constantine Cannon's San Francisco office and co-lead counsel in a statement.