Pressure continues to mount on UnitedHealth in the LabCorp scandal, but what they are doing the physicians may just be the tip of the iceberg:
I agree that UnitedHealth has stirred up a hornet’s nest with this notion of penalizing physicians for the behavior of their patients. I suspect that the company will not formally retract the policy because they may be desperate enough to actually enforce it, or policies like it, in the future. I predict that they won’t stand behind it for the time being and hope that the bad publicity will just go away. In the long run, however, they control the purse strings and this will always be the position of power in healthcare. For physicians, I fear, this is just a preview of coming attractions.
