On SCOTUS Refusal to Review UHC Case, MAOs Must Tighten Chart Review and Coding Practices

Amid mounting attention to Medicare Advantage organizations’ risk adjustment and prior authorization practices — which were the subjects of intense discussion during a recent House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing — the U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to take up a case brought by UnitedHealthcare (UHC) challenging CMS’s 2014 Overpayment Rule. Industry experts tell AIS Health, a division of MMIT, that this decision means CMS can begin enforcing its rule and may soon finalize its long-awaited extrapolation methodology for conducting Risk Adjustment Data Validation (RADV) audits.

“I think given the makeup of the court, on the one hand it was a bit surprising that they declined to take the case and that the denial of cert was issued without a comment. But on the other hand, given the general political landscape and issues that the court is considering, this is fundamentally an issue of administrative law and they’ve considered some other administrative law cases this term and I can understand why they decided not to take this case,” remarks Lindsey Brown Fetzer, member with Bass Berry & Sims and chair of the firm’s managed care practice.

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• Radar on Medicare Advantage