UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty is touting the company's home healthcare visits for its Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.
On a July 16 investor call, Mr. Witty said medical professionals made more than 2.5 million home health visits to UnitedHealthcare MA members in 2023.
"As a direct result, our clinicians identified 300,000 seniors with emergent health needs that may have otherwise gone undiagnosed," Mr. Witty said. "They connected more than 500,000 seniors to essential resources to help them with unaddressed needs such as food insecurity, medication, affordability, transportation and financial support."
The comments from the largest MA insurer come shortly after a July Wall Street Journal investigation found that between 2018 and 2021, insurers received $50 billion for diagnoses they added to members' charts. Many of these diagnoses were "questionable," according to the investigation.
UnitedHealth and other insurers said the Journal's report was inaccurate. A UnitedHealth spokesperson told the outlet the analysis was "inaccurate and biased."
Insurers often add diagnoses to beneficiaries' records during home health visits. Former UnitedHealth employees told the Journal home visits were used to add diagnoses, and clinicians used software during visits that offered suggestions as to what illness a patient might have.
Mr. Witty told investors UnitedHealth clinicians discovered more than 3 million gaps in care through home visits in 2023, and 75% of patients receive follow-up care in a clinic within 90 days of a home visit.
"The bottom line — our home visit programs help patients live healthier lives and save taxpayers money," Mr. Witty said. "It is only Medicare Advantage that makes programs and results like this possible."
AHIP, the trade association representing health insurers, called the WSJ report "flawed, incomplete and outdated" and defended MA chart reviews and health risk assessments in a July 8 statement.
CMS considers health risk assessments best practice for MA plans, the association said, and said these reviews are required for some types of plans.
"Whether they occur in the enrollee's home or in a clinical office setting, the HRA offers an opportunity for the health plan and provider to obtain a complete evaluation of the enrollee's physical, behavioral, and mental health needs, medications, health risks, and environmental factors that affect health," the association said.