The Texas Medical Association on Tuesday said it joined the American Medical Association and several other state medical associations and physicians in two lawsuits alleging that Aetna and Cigna used a flawed reimbursement system that underpaid physicians and overcharged patients for more than a decade, the Dallas Morning News reports (Roberson, Dallas Morning News, 2/10).

The lawsuits were filed in New Jersey federal court on Monday. According to the lawsuits, the insurers used faulty data from UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Ingenix to determine physician payments. Investigations by New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) found that the Ingenix database, used by many insurers to calculate reasonable and customary rates of reimbursement, had calculated rates between 10% and 28% too low. As a result, many people overpaid for out-of-network care. UnitedHealth, Aetna, HealthNet and MVP Health Care have settled investigations by Cuomo's office by agreeing to pay millions of dollars to patients and physicians affected by underpayments and to stop using Ingenix. The settlements also involve payments toward the development of a new, independent database to replace Ingenix (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 2/10)…