Mehmet Oz on Medicare Advantage upcoding: warns against

Dr. Mehmet Oz warns against Medicare Advantage insurer upcoding — the practice of coding patients as sicker than they are to extract higher payments. At his March 2025 Senate confirmation hearing, Oz labeled insurer upcoding practices “fraudulent” and said there was a “new sheriff in town” on the issue, per hearing recaps.

In March 2026, a bipartisan group of four senators pressed Oz further with a letter on the No UPCODE Act, urging CMS to tackle upcoding, per the Becker’s Payer reporting. Oz’s stated reasoning is that upcoding drains the Medicare program and that enforcement against it is part of making managed care honest. (Oz remains a long-standing supporter of Medicare Advantage itself; his criticism is aimed at the billing practice, not the program.)

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