Humana Inc., the insurer for 13 million taxpaying United States citizens, wants to hide details of its $45 billion TRICARE Managed Care Contract awarded by the Department of Defense in 2016. Last year, Humana reported more than $53 billion in revenue and its top executive received $3.46 million in compensation.
On May 29, Humana’s Government Business unit filed a Reverse Freedom of Information Act (R-FOIA) suit against the Defense Health Agency.
Who knew there was such a thing as a “Reverse Freedom of Information Act?”
The Freedom of Information Act allows average citizens full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information—subject to nine exceptions including national security reasons, geographic maps, trade secrets, personnel or medical records, law enforcement information, and more.
An R-FOIA claim is an attempt to prevent the release of sensitive or proprietary information. A judge must determine whether to allow or prevent the release of the information based on whether one of the nine FOIA exceptions applies.
At Issue, Disclosure of Humana’s “Technical Enhancements”
In its filing, Humana claims that certain portions of its $45 billion TRICARE Managed Care Contract need to be kept confidential. In the complaint, Humana alleges that disclosure of competitive and technical data contained in its bid and proposal will cause the company “competitive injury.”
The suit filed in the U.S. District Court For The District Of Columbia aims to prevent the disclosure of “technical enhancements” contained in Humana’s bid and proposal for the TRICARE contract. Technical enhancements are offerings which “exceed the Government’s minimum requirements.” Technical enhancements, while not required by the Defense Health Agency, are customarily provided by vendors as part of their TRICARE contract proposals. A vendor can distinguish itself from competitors by including enhancements which provide added value to the government in the form of quality healthcare, cost savings or other perceived benefits.
Humana’s Secret Weapon: Data
The HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act of 2009 provided grants and funding for the digitization of medical records and other supporting technologies. Since its passage, the amount of patient data that has been collected, stored and analyzed is staggering.
Humana is no exception—its contracts produce massive amounts of data. Humana has access to approximately 1.5 petabytes of data—150 times the information stored in the digitized version of all Library of Congress print collections.
The systems and technologies that Humana has developed to collect, analyze, and use data is likely part of the “technical enhancements” which Humana seeks to suppress. Humana has committed vast resources to develop its data mining and analytics technology. Disclosure of Humana’s data collection and analytic methodologies would be a boon to other market participants who could use this information to their competitive advantage.
