California regulators seek up to $9.9 billion in fines from PacifiCare

[mike r]

Source: Los Angeles Times

California regulators are seeking fines of up to $9.9 billion from health insurer PacifiCare over allegations that it repeatedly mismanaged medical claims, lost thousands of patient documents, failed to pay doctors what they were owed and ignored calls to fix the problems.

In court filings and other documents, the California Department of Insurance says PacifiCare violated state law nearly 1 million times from 2006 to 2008 after it was purchased by UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's largest health insurance company by revenue.

Regulators said the companies broke promises to maintain smooth operations for 130,000 of PacifiCare's customers, resulting in what insurance officials nationwide believe is the largest fine ever sought against a U.S. health insurer.

"This is about intentional disregard for the interests of doctors, hospitals and patients in California, and the pursuit of cutting costs at any means possible," said Adam Cole, the insurance department's general counsel. "It's a story of intense corporate greed."

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pacificare-unitedhealth-20100908,0,6380098.story

[Cleita]

1. Finally. They are the worst of the worst.

I was stiffed by them and my husband by their Medicare advantage program Secure Horizons, which almost caused his death. May they be dismantled and laid to rest forever.

[CountAllVotes]

4. they are tight pig bastards

and I too am one that is glad to see they are being fined. I had them for awhile myself and it was not a nice situation at all. Good riddance!!

:kick: & recommend.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. Please god, let this be the beginning of a trend.

As the states get broker, hopefully the fat cats will look more edible.

[FreakinDJ]

6. Jerry Brown in his finest

[Newsjock]

3. Outsourced health records admin

From the article:

Policyholders, meanwhile, inundated the Department of Insurance with complaints about PacifiCare losing their records, some of which were shipped to India, where they were miscoded and could not be retrieved.

[FreakinDJ]

5. 10 violations per customer - Gotta Love for profit medical care

[Blue_Tires]

9. +1

The biggest mistake of HCR was letting those leeches stay in business...

[SoapBox]

7. I hope the state SCREWS them out of the money! We HATE PacifiCare (aka United Healthcare)

...these dirty bastards canceled our small business policy about 2.5 years ago.

We hate them!

[indepat]

8. Hopefully HCR fixed this type of problem so this sort of fraudie thing will not happen again

;)

[Chicago dyke]

12. if you can entertain that idea

you haven't read the details of the "historic" "liberal" health "care" bill.

it does NOTHING to address many of the problems i'm sure are at the source of this CA action. cost control, better regulation of insurance companies, etc... all absent from the bill as passed and signed.

[indepat]

13. Well at least HCR assures some health-care CEOs will continue to be members of the $100-million-

dollars-annually-total-remumeration club. ;)

[mbperrin]

10. OMG! A regulator that wants to regulate!

More, please.

[Iowa]

11. What we really need to see is jail time for CEOs who commit these types of crimes...

Fines are a good start, but it's not enough. Until criminal CEOs and board members are imprisoned, they'll just consider fines a cost of doing business.