Universal Health Says Buzzfeed Report 'Misses The Mark In Several Important Ways'

Shares of Universal Health Services, Inc. (NYSE: UHS) tumbled more than 11 percent Wednesday after BuzzFeed News detailed a yearlong investigation into the company's operations.

BuzzFeed interviewed 175 current and former UHS staff members, including 18 high-ranking executives who ran the company's hospitals. The investigation also included more than 120 interviews with patients, government investigators, industry experts and internal documents.

Among the claims was that current and former employees from at least 10 different hospitals UHS runs said they were all under pressure to fill hospital beds by almost any method, including exaggerating symptoms and even twisting their words around so it appears the patients have suicidal thoughts.

BuzzFeed noted that more than one third of the company's $7.5 billion revenue comes from Medicare and Medicaid. In fact, the report suggested that employees hold patients "until their insurance payments ran out."

Universal Health Responds

Universal Health Services responded in a public letter on Thursday.

"We dispute and deny the conclusions drawn by the reporter in relation to UHS and believe that the story misses the mark in several important ways leading to an inaccurate portrayal of UHS's behavioral health operations," the company said. "Among other things, the story ignores the preeminent role of the clinician in treating patients, and misleads the reader by attempting to make unsupported assumptions about our behavioral health operations."

UHS added that the BuzzFeed report "minimizes" the dedication and role of its thousands of employees in its behavioral health facilities. Moreover, the company boasted the fact that 83 of its facilities were named as Top Performers on Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission.