A court has approved the $9.5 million settlement between more than 250 California ASCs and United Healthcare in a lawsuit that alleged that the insurer drastically underpaid out-of-network providers. The court's approval ends the 6-year class-action suit.

The suit included approximately 270 California ASCs that alleged that United Healthcare and its corporate subsidiary, Optum, Inc., (formerly Ingenix), improperly calculated reimbursements for out-of-network centers, resulting in underpayments of millions of dollars. As part of the settlement, some of the ASCs will receive payments of more than $400,000, according to the Sacramento, Calif., law firm Hooper, Lundy & Bookman, which represented the providers.

In the lawsuit, the ASCs alleged that the payer had calculated its reasonable and customary rates for out-of-network claims through the use of in-network or Medicare rates and an arbitrary multiplier, instead of going through geographical comparisons and its database, as it had reported. The lawsuit claimed that this broke both federal health benefits and anti-corruption laws as well as California business codes.

The preliminary settlement agreement was announced last September, and final approval from the court was granted this week.

"This is an important victory for out-of-network surgery centers," said lead attorney, Daron Tooch, in a statement. "We are pleased that the court has approved a settlement that will adequately compensate California surgery centers whose claims were underpaid."

Kendal Gapinski