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A years-long legal fight between UnitedHealthcare and physician staffing giant TeamHealth has come to a close. The two parties settled a 2021 lawsuit — filed over allegations that TeamHealth upcoded claims to the tune of $100 million — with terms kept confidential. Each side will cover its own legal fees.
A contentious legal battle between UnitedHealthcare (UHC) and TeamHealth, one of the country's largest physician staffing firms, has officially ended. A Tennessee court dismissed the 2021 case last week after the parties reached a confidential settlement, with each side absorbing its own attorneys' fees and costs.
UHC originally sued TeamHealth in October 2021, alleging the firm systematically upcoded medical claims — inflating billing codes to collect higher reimbursements — to the tune of roughly $100 million. UHC argued that TeamHealth, which manages billing and coding for its contracted physician groups, was the entity responsible for submitting the fraudulent claims and pocketing the excess payments.
TeamHealth pushed back at the time, with CEO Leif Murphy calling the lawsuit a distraction from a separate Nevada case in which a jury ordered UHC to pay $60 million for significantly underpaying emergency physicians.
Key Takeaways:
Why it matters: This settlement highlights the ongoing friction between major insurers and physician staffing firms over billing practices — a dispute with real implications for how emergency and hospital-based care is priced and reimbursed across the U.S.
