NY Attorney General Tackles Medical Rate Manipulation

By KATY MANTYK
Epoch Times Staff

NEW YORK—New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday announced historic reform of the nationwide health care reimbursement system that will end price manipulation by big insurance companies.

“This will lead to consumers getting what they paid for,” Attorney General Cuomo explained to the press on Tuesday.

Cuomo has reached an agreement with UnitedHealthGroup Inc., the nation’s second largest health insurer, after conducting an industry-wide investigation into a scheme to defraud consumers by manipulating reimbursement rates.

At the center of the scheme is Ingenix, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of United, which is the nation’s largest provider of health care billing information. Under the agreement with United, the database of billing information operated by Ingenix will close. United will pay $50 million to a qualified nonprofit organization (yet to be chosen) that will establish a new, independent database to help determine fair out-of-network reimbursement rates for consumers throughout the United States.

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