A Medicare billing fiasco sank The Villages Health into bankruptcy unraveling the Morse family’s previously profitable venture into health care. It was the No. 1 story of 2025 in Villages-News.com.
The Villages Health CEO Bobby Trinh announced in July that The Villages Health was seeking bankruptcy protection. The bankruptcy was intertwined with “erroneous Medicare coding” estimated at about $360 million. Trinh was paid a $200,000 “retention bonus” the day before the bankruptcy announcement.
The bankruptcy and planned sale to Humana’s CenterWell, prompted a series of court challenges from UnitedHealthcare, which had previously enjoyed a lucrative arrangement to market MedicareAdvantage plans to The Villages Health’s more than 50,000 patients. UnitedHealthcare accused the Morse family of ringing tens of millions of dollars out of The Villages Health prior to the bankruptcy.
Nearly 15 years earlier, The Villages had announced a comprehensive effort to return patient care to a “Marcus Welby” approach to medicine, harkening back to a simpler time when patients much more intimately conversed one-on-one with their doctors. The Villages eventually backed off references to the kindly doctor portrayed by Robert Young in the “Marcus Welby M.D.” television show which debuted in 1969. It was said that the show’s creators objected to the use of the fictional character for marketing purposes.
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