STAT+: Judges skewer HHS arguments in hearing over Medicare Advantage audits lawsuit

Tara covers the business of health care. Her stories focus on hospitals, doctors, and how their business practices affect patients — especially when private equity gets involved. She also writes about health insurance and ideas for improving our broken health system. You can reach Tara on Signal at tarabannow.70.Federal appeals court judges didn’t take kindly to the Trump administration’s arguments Monday in a hearing on Humana’s lawsuit against the government over its rules for auditing Medicare Advantage plans. The country’s second largest Medicare Advantage insurer argued in its 2023 lawsuit, Humana v. Kennedy, that the Health and Human Services Department’s final rule for auditing Medicare Advantage plans diverged significantly from its proposed rule and that stakeholders weren’t given proper notice and opportunity to comment on the change, which they said would be detrimental to insurers. In September 2025, a federal judge agreed and invalidated the rule, called the risk adjustment data validation, or RADV, rule. HHS appealed in November. During Monday’s oral arguments, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit seemed poised to toss the rule out, again. STAT+ Exclusive Story Already have an account? Log in This article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers Unlock this article — plus daily market-moving biopharma analysis — by subscribing to STAT+. Already have an account? Log in View All Plans To read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+. Subscribe