The Collusion Game

We’ve talked a bit about Medicare Advantage fraud and whistleblower complaints on the show, but for the final episode of season one, we’re talking to attorney Mary Inman and her whistleblower client Teresa Ross. Our conversation with them provides an inside look at how these cases work, as well as the toll they can take on people who are brave enough to file a whistleblower lawsuit. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rachel Krause had just endured every expectant mother’s worst nightmare: a stillbirth. But the trauma she was about to experience at the hands of her corporate medical provider had just begun. Requests for her medical records and information about her health ultimately led to her and her husband being discharged from Optum’s care. Rachel and Sam share their story in this episode of Sick Care. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Attorney Matt Lavin kept hearing the same complaint from doctors and hospitals being squeezed on reimbursements: look into MultiPlan. So he followed the money. In this episode of Sick Care, Lavin walks us through secret meetings and the lawsuit accusing MultiPlan and major insurers of allegedly colluding to rig out-of-network payments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jason Lomeyer spent nearly a decade inside HouseCalls. He says clinicians were nudged to stack diagnoses, helped along by incentives from Vegas retreats to financial perks. His account raises fundamental questions about Medicare Advantage…and the corporations running it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you think waiting on hold for hours to speak to your health insurer is bad, get a load of this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Curiosity led local journalist Adam Stone down a rabbit hole of investigating the corporate medical world: a path he didn’t expect to take. In this episode, we hear Stone’s story of building a community newspaper group and the circuitous path that brought him to this reporting. His work has helped detail how greed, red tape, and lost humanity are making the health care system sicker in Westchester County, NY, and across the nation, harming both patients and health care workers alike.You can check out more of Adam's reporting at The Examiner News.Sick Care is a production of No Smiling, Examiner Media, and Little Everywhere. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was executed in broad daylight on a busy Manhattan street. The horrific act of violence shook the world, and as investigators searched for answers, public discourse turned to our broken medical system—where profit often comes before patients, impacting Americans of every stripe.Sick Care is a gripping investigative podcast about these systemic failures of the U.S. medical industry, and the tragic events that expose its deadly flaws. Stakeholders from across the political spectrum now recognize the unsustainable status quo.Every day, millions face an impossible choice: battle an unyielding bureaucracy for care or risk their lives waiting. Social media erupted with stories of heartbreak and preventable tragedies, reigniting urgent calls for change. Meanwhile, journalists raced to uncover the truth about the web of corporate influence that has shaped the industry for decades.For Adam Stone, publisher of The Examiner News, a small newspaper group in New York’s Hudson Valley, the nation’s wake-up call was a story he had already been investigating for two years. Since late 2022, his local investigative reporting on Optum, a UnitedHealth subsidiary, uncovered whistleblower allegations, personal accounts of mistreatment, and DOJ scrutiny—issues that would soon resonate on a national scale.Produced by No Smiling, Little Everywhere, and Examiner Media, Sick Care builds on Stone’s reporting, with Peabody-winning audio producer Sean Cannon shaping an urgent, eye-opening narrative. Through exclusive interviews, expert analysis, and hard-hitting storytelling, Sick Care exposes the human cost of a system designed to deny care and profit off illness—and also explores what we can do to treat the metastasizing disease. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.