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UnitedHealth Purges Rheumatology Clinic, Patients Left Scrambling
Dropping Triangle Arthritis from its Medicare Advantage network is part of a wider strategy to cut high-cost doctors and dump vulnerable patients.Wendell Potter
Sep 09, 2025
Dr. A. Silvia Ross co-founded Triangle Arthritis & Rheumatology Associates in Raleigh, N.C., in 1994, and she says she has a handful of patients who’ve been with her since the very beginning. That’s not surprising given both the chronic nature of the illnesses that she manages and the nation’s severe shortage of rheumatology clinics – with patients reporting that an appointment at nearby facilities like Duke University or the University of North Carolina often requires a 17-month wait.
In October, Ross said, her rheumatology patients are “going to have to scramble because they're going to realize, ‘Oh man, I can't see my doctor anymore.’ And it's going to harm a lot of patients. These are patients who – a lot of them – get intravenous infusions with highly expensive medications, whose diseases are brittle and will flare.”
There’s mounting evidence that what’s happening to Ross and her North Carolina clinic isn’t going to be an isolated incident. Instead, her practice may be on the cutting edge of a trend, as Big Insurance looks to preserve profit margins by dropping doctors who treat its often older, sickest patients.
Massive parent company UnitedHealth Group – which has seen its stock price plunge in 2025 under heightened scrutiny from angry patients, investors and government – appears to be leading the charge. How do we know this? The company’s executives told their investors that this was their strategy in blunt terms during an earnings conference call this summer.
https://healthcareuncovered.substack.com/p/unitedhealth-purges-rheumatology?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=255152&post_id=173052721&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=5slj1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Why? Because we let them get away with it.
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