From a hearing date set for CEO Andrew Witty's testimony before a congressional panel, to the release of its first earnings report since the Change Healthcare cyberattack, here are 12 updates on UnitedHealth Group that Becker's has reported since April 3.
1. Former employees with UnitedHealth Group's Optum and its subsidiaries took to social media beginning April 18 regarding a reduction in force they say occurred across the company. Optum declined to provide more information April 19. Becker's has not confirmed an exact number or range of employees who may have been terminated or when layoffs would be effective.
2. UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty will testify May 1 before a U.S. House subcommittee about the cyberattack on the company's Change Healthcare subsidiary.
3. Eight managed care organizations, including UnitedHealth, have filed notices of intent to challenge Florida's recent Medicaid contract awards, which provide health coverage to more than 3.4 million people.
4. Hackers reportedly have begun to sell patient data and business agreements they claim were stolen in the Change Healthcare cyberattack.
5. UnitedHealth Group drew the ire of federal lawmakers during the first hearing on the fallout surrounding the unprecedented cyberattack on Change Healthcare in late February.
6. UnitedHealth Group plans to bring Change Healthcare back stronger than it was before it suffered the largest cyberattack in the history of the U.S. healthcare system. On an April 16 call with investors, UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty said it is "important for the country" that UnitedHealth Group owns Change.
7. Rising medical cost trends are stabilizing, UnitedHealth Group executives say.
8. UnitedHealth Group posted a $1.4 billion net loss in the first quarter of 2024 following the sale of its Brazil operations and the cyberattack on its Change Healthcare subsidiary.
9. Bloomberg reported that UnitedHealth Group's chairman and three of the company's executives made a combined $101.5 million from stock sales made over a four-month period leading up to the public becoming aware of a Justice Department antitrust investigation.
10. Major insurers, including UnitedHealthcare, made millions in fees by using MultiPlan, a data analytics firm, to determine how much to pay providers for out-of-network claims, according to an investigation by The New York Times.
11. A second ransomware group is reportedly trying to extort UnitedHealth Group's Change Healthcare over the recent cyberattack. Hackers known as RansomHub claim to have 4 terabytes of Change's data and reached out to the company asking for payment or else they would sell the information on the dark web, cybersecurity analyst Dominic Alvieri posted April 7 on LinkedIn.
12. UnitedHealthcare named Robert Hunter as president of its Medicare business.