UPDATED: June 4 at 5:31 p.m. ET
UnitedHealth Group filed a defamation lawsuit against the Guardian on Wednesday, alleging that a report from the outlet published last month falsely accused the company of paying kickbacks in a skilled nursing program.
The company said in a complaint filed in Delaware state court that the news outlet published what it called a "full accounting" of UnitedHealthcare's behavior, and linked the story to the December murder of former UHC CEO Brian Thompson.
However, the insurance giant claims that the Guardian's article was "filled with knowingly false claims, intentionally deceptively doctored documents, and patently untruthful anecdotes." The company said in statement to Fierce Healthcare that it is taking action "to protect the clinician-patient relationship that is crucial for delivering high-quality care."
"The Guardian knew these accusations were false, but published them anyway, brazenly trying to capitalize on the tragic and shocking assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s then-CEO, Brian Thompson, in December 2024," the company wrote in the lawsuit.
For example, UnitedHealth argues that an email included in the article was cropped to inaccurately represent the company as coercing nursing home residents into signing "do not resuscitate" paperwork, when the uncropped version would contradict that conclusion.
A spokesperson for the Guardian told Fierce Healthcare that the outlet stands by its reporting.
"“The Guardian stands by its deeply-sourced, independent reporting, which is based on thousands of corporate and patient records, publicly filed lawsuits, declarations submitted to federal and state agencies and interviews with more than 20 current and former UnitedHealth employees – as well as statements and information provided by UnitedHealth itself over several weeks," the spokesperson said.
"It’s outrageous that in response to factual reporting on the practice of secretly paying nursing homes to reduce hospitalizations for vulnerable patients, UnitedHealth is resorting to wildly misleading claims and intimidation tactics via the courts," they said.
The crux of the article stems from a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a nurse practitioner formerly employed by UnitedHealthcare, who claimed the company worked to deny care to seniors in order to reduce costs. The Department of Justice declined to intervene in that case and it was dropped in 2023.
The Guardian's reporting came amid a spate of bad news for the company, which has dragged down its share prices and spooked investors. UnitedHealth posted a rare miss in the first quarter of this year, and also made a change at the top of the company, with CEO Andrew Witty stepping down for personal reasons.
Newly-reinstated CEO Stephen Hemsley sought to assure investors that he's working to right the ship at a shareholder meeting earlier this week.
PUBLISHED: May 21
After rallying for several days in a row, UnitedHealth Group's shares are taking another downturn following media reports that it paid kickbacks to nursing homes to reduce patient transfers to hospitals.
The report, published in The Guardian, alleges that bonuses were paid to facilities based on metrics like "admits per thousand," which tracked how many patients were sent from a nursing home to the hospital. The program aimed to reduce costs, but put patients at risk, according to the article.
For example, a nurse at a facility in Washington state reported to a remote UnitedHealth clinician that a patient was experiencing symptoms of a stroke. But rather than supporting the potential stroke diagnosis and recommending that the patient go to the hospital, UnitedHealth's employee suggested that they may be experiencing a transient ischemic attack, a less serious diagnosis.
The patients' primary care physician said she was not notified of this exchange, per The Guardian.
Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit organization that is working with whistleblowers in the case, said in a press release that when patients were sent to the hospital instead of following recommendations, their pay was docked and they were subject to a "grueling" review.
“Scores of elderly patients never received the care that they needed, all because UnitedHealthcare skimped on care to cut costs,” one of the nurse practitioners formerly employed by UHC, Dr. Maxwell Ollivant, said in the release. “UnitedHealthcare is compelling medical professionals to comply with its financially driven playbook at the expense of patient safety, forcing providers to violate their ethical obligations. I’d like to see them held accountable for putting profits over patients.”
Ollivant was also interviewed for The Guardian's article. UnitedHealth told the news outlet that Ollivant "lacks both the necessary data and expertise" to measure how effective its programs are.
He filed suit against the company in federal court over similar allegations that the healthcare giant was standing in the way of access to care for nursing home patients, but the Department of Justice declined to intervene in the case and it was dropped in 2023.
In a statement posted to its website, UnitedHealth said DOJ thoroughly investigated Ollivant's allegations.
"The U.S. Department of Justice investigated these allegations, interviewed witnesses, and obtained thousands of documents that demonstrated the significant factual inaccuracies in the allegations," the company said. "After reviewing all the evidence during its multi-year investigation, the Department of Justice declined to pursue the matter."
Given the spate of bad news around the company—just last week, CEO Andrew Witty stepped down, replaced by returning chief Stephen Hemsley, and it was reported that the DOJ was investigating UHG for criminal Medicare fraud—The Guardian's article spooked investors during premarket trading on Wednesday, with shares stumbling out of the gate.
However, trading prices have increased throughout the morning, with shares down just 4% as of about 11:30 a.m. The company's stock has rallied by 12% overall in the past five days.