Exclusive: UnitedHealth's strategy to profit from Medicare

Exclusive

Inside UnitedHealth's strategy to pressure physicians: $10,000 bonuses and a doctor leaderboard

By Tara Bannow, Bob Herman, Casey Ross, and Lizzy Lawrence

UnitedHealth Group relied on a variety of tactics — money, peer pressure, and guilt — to incentivize doctors at one of its practices to pile diagnoses onto Medicare Advantage patients, a STAT investigation finds.

At one clinic, UnitedHealth shared with doctors a dashboard comparing the percentage of chronic diseases they found among their Medicare Advantage patients with other practices within the company. Those who completed the most appointments with older patients got a "SHOUT OUT!!" in messages and were eligible for up to $10,000 in bonuses. "We can do this!!" another email said, encouraging doctors who were falling behind.

"I think that's an inherent conflict of interest. Effectively what you're incentivizing is sicker patients, or at least sicker appearing on paper, which I think is a joke," said Nick Jones, a primary care physician who used to work at a practice owned by UnitedHealth and now runs his own.