A Guardian investigation finds insurer quietly paid facilities that helped it gain Medicare enrollees and reduce hospitalizations. Whistleblowers allege harm to residents

UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest healthcare conglomerate, has secretly paid nursing homes thousands in bonuses to help slash hospital transfers for ailing residents – part of a series of cost-cutting tactics that has saved the company millions, but at times risked residents’ health, a Guardian investigation has found.

Those secret bonuses have been paid out as part of a UnitedHealth program that stations the company’s own medical teams in nursing homes and pushes them to cut care expenses for residents covered by the insurance giant.

In several cases identified by the Guardian, nursing home residents who needed immediate hospital care under the program failed to receive it, after interventions from UnitedHealth staffers. At least one lived with permanent brain damage following his delayed transfer, according to a confidential nursing home incident log, recordings and photo evidence.

  • nkat2112@sh.itjust.works
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    2か月前

    Thank you for sharing this, OP.

    The horrors of privatized healthcare appear to be unending.

    May UnitedHealth and other “healthcare” insurers get what they deserve.

  • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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    2か月前

    Fuck insurance companies. They’re literally scamming grandmothers out of healthcare.

    May they all live in interesting times.

    • mpa92643@lemmy.world
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      2か月前

      Any market where choosing not to participate is simply not a viable option should be prohibited from being for-profit.

      If all smartphone makers start getting too greedy and charge too much, people will just not upgrade their phones and the smartphone makers will have to lower their prices or justify their higher prices with innovations. People can choose not to participate in the market and pressure the entire industry to lower their prices or create new features to encourage participation.

      If insurance starts getting (read: gets even more) greedy, cancelling your insurance isn’t an option, especially if you’re sick. Foregoing insurance means either dying or accumulating extraordinary medical debt you can never repay. There is no pressure on insurance companies to lower their prices because you will always have to pick one of them. As long as they all increase their prices together, they all benefit and their profit keeps going up. Their only “innovations” in the industry are to minimize payments for medical services and maximize how much they shove in their pockets.

      For-profit health insurance should be illegal.

      • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works
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        2か月前

        There’s a lot of things that shouldn’t be for-profit (ie: affordable housing, food, potable water) but the Reagan/Thatcher trickle-down bs has led Western nations to this point.

        If we want change we’re gonna have to fight tooth and nail for it.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    2か月前

    So when are we going to jail United execs and managers tgst signed off on this?

    If I pay someone to delay another person’s care that that other person gets brain damage, I’ll go to jail for at least a decade. If I do it on an industrial scale, ill get a bonus.

    A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

    START JAILING NTHEDE FUCKERS! NOW!

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        2か月前

        Every time an “eat the rich” topic comes up, the moderators whip out the banhammer. They hide behind some justification about how the cops are toooootaly gonna raid their servers if they aren’t explicitly supportive of oligarchs, but really it’s simple cowardice that shouldn’t be rewarded. Don’t pre-comply with fascists and all that…

  • Poojabber@lemmy.world
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    2か月前

    We all know that “healthcare” companies are rotten scumbags who dont care about the health of individuals, but could The Guardian have identified something by The Guardian to prove by the Guardian that these united healthcare companies were doing something The Guardian thought proved these companies were scumbags by The Guardian? Also, The Guardian.