Dive Brief:
Shareholders are asking UnitedHealth to analyze the impact of healthcare delays and denials on public health and the company itself, one month after the healthcare conglomerate’s top insurance executive was shot and killed in Manhattan.
On Wednesday, a faith-based group of investors requested UnitedHealth prepare a report looking into how its practices “impact access to healthcare and patient outcomes, including analyses of how often prior authorization requirements or denials of coverage lead to delay or abandonment of medical treatment and serious adverse events for patients,” according to the proposal.
UnitedHealth will respond to the proposal for its 2025 proxy statement when that document is filed, according to a spokesperson. That document is usually filed in April.
Dive Insight:
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down in December in a shocking crime that appears to have been motivated by anger about health insurers profiting from curbing medical care.
As the largest private insurer in the U.S., UnitedHealthcare long been under the microscope on that issue. However, simmering resentment against payers intensified last year amid reports that insurers were using algorithms to decide whether medical care should be covered.
In October, a Senate committee released a report slamming Medicare Advantage insurers, including UnitedHealthcare, for using algorithms to sharply increase the rate of claims denials between 2019 and 2022. UnitedHealthcare has also been sued over its alleged use of the technology to deny claims.
Now, shareholders affiliated with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a nonprofit coalition of more than 300 investor groups, want answers as to how those tactics could be affecting UnitedHealth’s brand — and the world at large.
Improper care denials and utilization management practices like prior authorization could be impairing the value of shareholders’ portfolios, while dragging down the broader economy through worsening health outcomes and consumer finances, according to the proposal.
“[UnitedHealth] has been in the media and legislative spotlight for some time given its market dominance, aggressive marketing of Medicare Advantage and questionable use of AI algorithms to deny care to patients,” stated Timnit Ghermay, a representative of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a Quebec-based group that led the filing. “As the tragic murder of UNH’s Brian Thompson made evident, public outrage over the exorbitant costs and restricted access to healthcare has reached a dangerous level in our country.”
Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with Thompson’s murder, pleaded not guilty in a New York court last month.
