Federal appeals court rules against Unitedhealthcare on Conn. Medicare advantage case

In the meantime, some consumers must re-enroll in traditional Medicare to keep seeing doctors UnitedHealthcare dropped in New Haven, Conn.

Hartford Courant: Appeals Court Upholds, Modifies Injunction Against UnitedHealthcare, Directs Doctors To Arbitration
A federal appeals court on Friday denied UnitedHealthcare's requests to toss out a legal battle brought by doctor associations in Fairfield and Hartford counties and directs doctors to arbitration. The decision, however, modified a temporary injunction issued by the U.S. District Court in Bridgeport that halted UnitedHealthcare's plan to cut thousands of Connecticut doctors from its Medicare Advantage network. That injunction is modified to give the aggrieved doctors up to 30 days from Feb. 7 to challenge their removal from the insurer's network (Sturdevant, 2/8).

New Haven Register: Medicare Advantage Patients Must Re-enroll by Feb. 14 To Keep Yale-New Haven Doctors
Senior citizens impacted by United Healthcare's decision to drop Yale-New Haven Health System doctors are being given until Feb. 14 to enroll in original Medicare. Individuals who want to keep their doctors at Yale-New Haven can do so by un-enrolling from the United Healthcare Medicare Advantage Plan and re-enrolling in original Medicare," Gov. Dannel Malloy said Friday (Stuart, 2/7).

Earlier, related KHN coverage: Judge's Medicare Advantage Order Could Have National Impact (Jaffe, 12/6/2013).