Physicians gauge impact as CEO leaves UnitedHealth

An insider is selected to lead the health plan giant as a stock-option scandal claims the careers of other executives.

By Jonathan G. Bethely, AMNews staff. Nov. 6, 2006.

Now that embattled UnitedHealth Group CEO William McGuire, MD, is leaving the company amid a stock options scandal that has damaged the company's financial reputation, state medical societies are skeptical that new leadership will improve the take-it-or-leave-it tactics physicians said marked United under Dr. McGuire's tenure.

After a sweeping internal probe and ongoing investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission, federal prosecutors in New York and the Minnesota attorney general, Dr. McGuire, whose unexercised stock options are valued at $1.8 billion, announced he would immediately step aside as chair and vacate his CEO post by Dec. 1. His longtime lieutenant, Stephen Hemsley, was tapped to replace him.

"[Stephen Hemsley] has been groomed under [Dr. McGuire], so we expect that many of the same practices will be carried over," said Susan Strate, MD, chair of the council on socioeconomics for the Texas Medical Assn. said. "At the local level we've had dialogue. Sometimes we're able to affect change, and many times we're not."

Reed Tuckson, MD, UnitedHealth's senior vice president of consumer health and medical care advancement, said he expects the level of what he called collaborative partnering to intensify in the coming months and years. United has shown some willingness to meet with doctors on contracting issues, though usually after physicians protest loudly, as they have in some states over United's attempt to impose a pay-for-performance plan based on claims data.