The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the class-action status for a lawsuit filed by more than 600,000 doctors charging Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. and five other health insurers violated federal racketeering law by regularly underpaying them for medical services.
The justices rejected an appeal by the health maintenance organizations and let stand a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that allowed the class-action lawsuit to proceed to trial before a federal judge in Miami, Reuters reported.
The lawsuit chargest that HMOs conspired to program their computers to systematically underpay physicians for services between 1990 and 2002.
Along with PacifiCare, the other defendants are: Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc.; Louisville, Ky.-based Humana Inc.; a unit of New Jersey’s Prudential Financial Inc.; Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Indianapolis-based WellPoint Health Networks Inc.
Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc. and Philadelphia’s Cigna Corp. settled with the plaintiffs.
The HMOs had argued that the Atlanta-based appeals court used the wrong standard in upholding a judge’s decision to give the lawsuit class-action certification.
