Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
- John Koeltl
- 1:20-cv-09183
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc., Judge Koeltl granted defendants’ application to seal or redact commercially sensitive and private information.
The ruling affected the defendants, the TeamHealth plaintiffs, and a nonparty whose confidential business, financial, contractual, market, negotiation, or health-related information appeared in the identified exhibits. It concerned public access to those materials, not the merits of the underlying dispute.
What happened
Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc. concerns defendants’ request to file certain exhibits supporting their motion for summary judgment under seal. The exhibits included business, financial, negotiation, contract, market, and health-benefit claims information involving the parties and a nonparty.
The defendants argued that disclosure could cause competitive harm, weaken bargaining positions, reveal proprietary agreements and strategies, and expose personally identifiable health information. The application also relied on the confidentiality and protective order already entered in the case.
Judge John G. Koeltl granted the application. The ruling allowed the identified confidential materials to be filed under seal or redacted, based on privacy interests and the risk of commercial harm.
The detailed version
- Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc. · No. 1:20-cv-09183
- John Koeltl
- Sept. 5, 2023
Background
Defendants UnitedHealth Group, Inc., United HealthCare Services, Inc., UMR, Inc., UnitedHealthcare Service LLC, UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company, and Oxford Health Plans LLC requested permission to file under seal certain exhibits to the declarations of Gregory Jacob and Erika Mayers. The declarations supported defendants’ motion for summary judgment in Emergency Physician Services of New York v. UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
The request relied on the confidentiality and protective order in the case. That order required a party seeking to file unredacted confidential or attorneys’-eyes-only information to ask the court for permission to file it under seal.
Materials at issue
The identified exhibits included deposition transcripts, agreements, amendments, expert-report materials, disputed-claims data, and spreadsheets. According to the application, the materials contained:
- Financial information about the average cost of providing emergency-department care and reimbursement payments; - Internal business processes, practices, standards, and strategies; - Information about negotiations over reasonable reimbursement rates and network agreements; - Strategies concerning contracts, facilities, health-benefit plans, out-of-network programs, and relationships with other entities; - Confidential and proprietary agreements involving parties and nonparties; - Data used in expert reports, including billed charges, allowed amounts, and calculations based on billed charges and Medicare amounts; - Health-benefit claims data, personally identifiable information, and confidential market and charge-benchmark data.
The application stated that disclosure could cause competitive or commercial harm to defendants, the TeamHealth plaintiffs, and a nonparty by revealing negotiation positions, reimbursement rates, business strategies, contract terms, and other proprietary information. It also stated that some personally identifiable health information was protected from public disclosure by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and its implementing regulations.
Court’s ruling
The court recognized a presumption that judicial documents are publicly accessible but explained that this presumption must be balanced against countervailing interests, including privacy interests and the nature and degree of any injury from disclosure. It cited protection of highly sensitive business and financial information and protection against competitive injury as grounds supporting sealing.
Judge John G. Koeltl granted the application. The ruling permitted defendants to file the identified materials under seal or redact the confidential information. The text provided does not decide the parties’ underlying dispute or rule on defendants’ motion for summary judgment.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.