Editor's Note: The original version of this article misstated in what month the Tricare contracts were awarded. They were awarded in July.
Two of the nation’s largest health insurers have filed protests with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) contesting the defense department's decision to award new Tricare contracts to competing companies.
UnitedHealth officially filed its protest with the GAO on Aug. 1, and WellPoint Military Care, a subsidiary of Anthem, filed its own protest a day later.
The protests dispute the contracts awarded to Tricare’s East and West regions announced in July by the Defense Health Agency at the Department of Defense. The defense department appointed Humana to manage the East region, a consolidation of the North and South regions worth $40.5 billion over the five-year contract. Health Net, which was acquired by Centene in March, was selected to run the West region, with a contract valued at $17.7 billion.
In an email to employees obtained by The Military Times, UnitedHealth’s Military and Veterans President, retired Navy Vice Adm. John Mateczun, said the protest could “reopen the competition, requiring the submittal of revised proposals” or trigger a “re-evaluation of already submitted proposals.”
UnitedHealth won a $20.5 billion bid to administer Tricare in the Western region in 2012 following a protest from TriWest, but was quickly inundated with complaints regarding customer service delays and difficulty with referrals.
- see UnitedHealth’s protest filing
- here’s WellPoint’s protest filing
- read The Military Times article