State Attorney General George Jepsen has urged the federal overseers of the Medicare program to “aggressively scrutinize” UnitedHealth Care’s recent cutting of more than 2,200 Medicare Advantage providers in Connecticut.
Jepsen said his staff has held informal discussions with UnitedHealth, which he said declined to provide information on the scope of the doctor terminations and the number of patients it will impact.
“We are deeply troubled by United insisting that its remaining provider network will be adequate despite simultaneously claiming not to know the number of patients affected,” Jepsen wrote in a letter today to Christine L. Hager, regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Jepsen is asking HHS to get the answers from the insurer that he has been unable to get, and to extend the Medicare Advantage open enrollment period, which runs into December, for UnitedHealth plan holders.
Jepsen’s letter comes several weeks after Connecticut’s Congressional delegation demanded similar answers from the insurer.
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