A tracker of major recent lawsuits filed by government and private plaintiffs against UnitedHealth Group for allegedly violating antitrust laws and other harms to patients, health care providers, and pharmacies.
UnitedHealth Group (UHG) is the nation’s largest health care conglomerate, ranking fourth on the Fortune 500 with more than $371.6 billion in annual revenue. Its business lines span the health care supply chain, including its UnitedHealthcare insurance subsidiary and its Optum subsidiary, which includes pharmacies, a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), providers, and data and analytics services, among others. Through hundreds of recent horizontal and vertical acquisitions, UHG’s Optum Health subsidiary has grown into the largest physician employer in the country, acquiring or hiring roughly 10% of the workforce. OptumRx is one of the “Big Three” PBMs, which collectively account for nearly 80% of all U.S. prescription drug claims and make billions of choices a year about who pays how much for which drug. UHG also operates Optum Insight, a data and analytics business that includes Change Healthcare, a claims clearinghouse, and Optum Bank, the second-largest provider of health savings accounts, managing nearly $22 billion in assets in 2023.
UHG has a long history of documented abuses, including violating antitrust laws, denying claims for medically necessary care, squeezing independent pharmacies and physician practices out of business, manipulating data to maximize its profits. This tracker compiles major recent lawsuits filed by public and private plaintiffs against UHG for a wide range of harms.
Have a lawsuit to add? Email us at info@economicliberties.us.
This data was last updated Nov 18., 2024.
| Plaintiff | Suit | Date Filed | Nature of Suit | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government | ||||
| FTC | Caremark Rx, Zinc Health Services, et al., In the Matter of (Insulin) | Sept. 20, 2024 | The FTC sued the “Big Three” PBMs –– CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and UHG’s OptumRx –– and their affiliates for allegedly engaging in anticompetitive and illegal rebating practices that inflate the list price of brand-name insulin drugs and impede patient access to cheaper generic alternatives. | Pending |
| DOL | Julie A. Su v. UMR, Inc. | July 31, 2023 | DOL Secretary Julie Su sued UHG’s UMR, a third-party administrator for employer health plans, alleging that UMR improperly denied claims for emergency services and urinary drug screening dating to 2015. | Pending |
| DOJ | U.S. Department of Justice et al. v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc. and Amedisys, Inc. | Nov. 12, 2024 | The DOJ Antitrust Division, along with attorneys general in Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York, sued UHG to block its proposed $3.3 billion acquisition of Amedisys, a home health and hospice care provider. The deal would eliminate competition between the two parties, driving up costs for patients who receive home health and hospice care and their insurers while driving down wages and benefits for nurses who provide such care, according to the complaint. | Pending |
| DOJ | U.S. Department of Justice et al. v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc. and Change Healthcare, Inc. | Feb. 24, 2022 | The DOJ, along with attorneys general in Minnesota and New York, unsuccessfully sued UHG to block its acquisition of Change Healthcare, alleging that the proposed $13 billion deal would harm competition in both the commercial health insurance and health insurance claims technology markets. Indeed, after the merger, a cyberattack on Change Healthcare in February 2024 paralyzed the U.S. health care system for weeks, leaving physicians, pharmacies, and patients unable to prescribe, dispense, or access life-saving medications. | Decided |
| Local and state governments | In Re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation | Dec. 12, 2017 | Nearly 200 cities, counties, and states have filed lawsuits against drug manufacturers and distributors, including UHG’s OptumRx, alleging that they violated the Controlled Substances Act, among other federal laws, and contributed to the opioid crisis. A federal panel consolidated the suits into a single multi-district case in late 2017. | Pending |
| Private Plaintiff | ||||
| Class Action | In re: Change Healthcare, Inc., Customer Data Security Breach Litigation | Jun. 7, 2024 | A federal panel consolidated six class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of patients and healthcare providers against UHG’s Change Healthcare. The suits allege that Change failed to safeguard patient’s personal information and providers’ ability to process insurance claims, both of which were compromised by a February 2024 cyberattack. | Pending |
| Emanate Health | Emanate Health et al. v. Optum Health et al. | Nov. 20, 2023 | Emanate Health, a nonprofit California health system, accused UHG’s Optum, the largest employer of physicians in the U.S., of pressuring it not to compete for primary care business and, when Emanate refused, retaliating by cutting off contracts and steering patients away from Emanate providers. | Pending |
| Class Action | The Estate of Gene B. Lokken and The Estate of Dale Henry Tetzloff v. UHG et al. | Nov. 14, 2023 | The families of two deceased Medicare Advantage beneficiaries sued UHG and its subsidiary, NaviHealth, an automated care management system, alleging that they used an error-prone algorithm to deny medically necessary rehabilitation care to seniors. | Pending |
| Class action | Ryan S. v. UHG et al. | Jul. 11, 2019 | Ryan S., acting on behalf of a class, sued UHG’s UnitedHealthcare, alleging that the health insurer had violated federal behavioral health parity laws by applying a more stringent review process to mental health and substance use disorder claims than to medical and surgical claims. | Pending |