Medicare Advantage beneficiaries who are suing UnitedHealth Group over allegedly wrongful denials of care that were based on artificial intelligence scored a victory Thursday, as a judge ruled their case could move forward.
There has been a stay on discovery in the case since August — meaning the attorneys representing the Medicare Advantage enrollees and their families couldn’t poke around and ask to see internal UnitedHealth documents. But this decision could reopen that process. UnitedHealth and attorneys representing the beneficiaries did not immediately respond to questions.
UnitedHealth attempted to dismiss the case last year after it was filed in late 2023, and one of the company’s main arguments was that the suing parties didn’t go through Medicare’s full process of appealing their denied claims — a laborious venture that most people don’t know about and could take years to complete. In some cases, people die before a final decision on their appeal is reached.
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