New Study Reveals UnitedHealth’s Hidden Hand

A new Health Affairs study has confirmed that UnitedHealth Group — the nation’s largest health care conglomerate — is doing more than dominating the market; it’s playing by a different set of rules.

Researchers Daniel Arnold of Brown University and Brent Fulton of UC Berkeley analyzed new federal “Transparency in Coverage” data and found that UnitedHealth’s insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, pays its own Optum physicians 17% more on average than it pays other doctors for the same services. And in markets where UnitedHealthcare holds a large share — 25% or more — that gap explodes to 61%.

Read the full article on Health Care un-covered.