UnitedHealthcare sent a threatening legal letter to a top plastic surgeon who spoke out against the insurance giant.
Dr. Elisabeth Potter, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Austin, Texas, is one of many doctors who condemned UnitedHealthcare’s practices following the December assassination of CEO Brian Thompson.
In a recent video posted to TikTok last month, Potter said she was in the middle of performing reconstructive surgery on a patient who survived breast cancer when she received a call from UnitedHealthcare.
Leaving the operating room, Potter said the insurance representative allegedly told her needed information about the patient’s diagnosis to determine ‘if her inpatient stay should be justified.’
Now, after news of her alleged experience spread, the insurance company has hit back at Potter with a lengthy legal letter, asking her to ‘correct your knowingly false, misleading and defamatory social media posts regarding UnitedHealthcare.’
The company vehemently denied Potter’s claim that she was forced to step out of the surgery that day to take the call, and said that she would have never received a call if her office hadn’t ‘incorrectly ordered an inpatient hospital stay when you meant to order an outpatient observation stay.’
‘Let us be clear: any suggestion that UnitedHealthcare asked you to step out of surgery, or that the call was urgent, is false. UnitedHealthcare did not ask – now would it ever expect – a physician to interrupt patient care to return a phone call about a notification error or any other insurance matter,’ defamation law firm Clarke Locke LLP said in the letter on behalf of the insurer.
Although the company did not threaten legal action, Potter was told she ‘can be held liable both for the damages stemming from your false statement, and from republication of your false statement,’ adding that they want her to contact every outlet that reported her claims and let them know they ‘were false.’
UnitedHealthcare sent a threatening legal letter to Dr. Elisabeth Potter, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Austin, Texas, after she took to social media and spread ‘false’ claims about the insurance company
She is one of several doctors who condemned the insurance giant following the December assassination of CEO Brian Thompson (pictured)
In her initial post, which has amassed 5.5 million views, Potter, dressed in a blue scrub cap, said: ‘It’s 2025 and insurance just keeps getting worse.
‘I just did two bilateral dieps and two bilateral tissue expanders for patients, and I’ve never had this happen before, but during the second diep, I got a phone call into the operating room saying that UnitedHealthcare wanted me to call them about one of the patients who was having surgery today, who’s actually asleep having surgery.
‘And you know, said I have to call right now. So I scrubbed out of my case and I called UnitedHealthcare and the gentleman said he needed some information about her, wanna know her diagnosis and whether her inpatient stay should be justified,’ she added.
Potter then asked if the employee knew that the patient was asleep and has breast cancer, to which they responded that he didn’t know and ‘that’s a different department,’ she said.
‘Yeah, it’s out of control. Insurance is out of control. I have no other words,’ Potter continued.
She later clarified in a follow-up post that there was a second surgeon in the operating room with her, who watched over the patient as she took the phone call.
In a video posted just three days after Potter made the claims, she said she had received a call from the insurance giant about her post.
She said a representative for the company left her a message, and she tried to call back, but she was left on hold and was never able to reach the right person.
Weeks later, Potter said she received a demand letter from Clarke Locke – which markets itself as ‘the leading law firm in the United States’ and previously represented Dominion Voting Systems in obtaining a nearly $800million settlement from Fox News.
In her initial post, which has amassed 5.5 million views, Potter, dressed in a blue scrub cap, said: ‘It’s 2025 and insurance just keeps getting worse,’ as she described her alleged ordeal
In the letter, which Potter posted in its entirety, the law firm accused the doctor of making an error in her patient’s orders and of allowing ‘threatening, harassing and intimidating comments’ on her social media pages that were directed at UHC.
The firm also claimed the representative from UnitedHealthcare was going to leave a message when they found out she was in surgery.
‘Your claims are false. You clearly know they are false. You falsely laid the blame for your office’s error on UnitedHealthcare publicly, unleashing a firestorm of dangerous misinformation,’ the letter read.
It went on to demand Potter ‘correct the record’ by deleting her posts, issuing a public apology to UHC, contact any media outlets that covered her posts to retract her claims and condemn ‘the threats of violence aimed at our client resulting from your posts.’
In a video on Monday, Potter acknowledged she found the demand letter ‘a bit intimidating,’ but vowed ‘I’m not going to be silenced by threats when it comes to speaking out for my patients.’
She then went on to lament the insurance company’s handling of her patient’s case, saying it was ‘even worse’ than the letter she received.
‘Staying overnight after major surgery isn’t optional – it’s medically necessary,’ Potter argued. ‘But UnitedHealthcare decided they know better than the doctors caring for the patient.’
‘When they called me while I was operating, I knew that if I didn’t step out and respond immediately, they might deny her stay – leaving her with a massive bill,’ she continued, defending her actions. ‘So, with another surgeon in the OR, I scrubbed out and called them back.
In another video posted Monday, Potter acknowledged she found the insurance company’s demand letter ‘a bit intimidating,’ but vowed ‘I’m not going to be silenced by threats when it comes to speaking out for my patients’
‘But after all that? They denied her stay anyway,’ she claimed.
‘And instead of fixing their broken system, they sent me a legal threat for speaking out.’
The doctor then vowed to continue to fight and speak out against the insurance giant.
‘If I don’t speak up, I lose my integrity, my voice and the opportunity to make a difference,’ she said.
‘And while it’s intimidating to receive a letter like this from a company as powerful as UnitedHealthcare, I know where I stand.
‘Let me be clear: I stand by everything I said. I told the truth. I was honest about what’s happening in our healthcare system. And I will not be silenced by legal threats when it comes to advocating for my patients and my ability to care for them.’
In the post sharing the letter, Potter also wrote: ‘My words were true and this situation was absurd.’
She was adamant in her statement that the patient’s overnight stay was necessary for ‘medical reasons’ and was ‘not an error on my part.’
‘The gaslighting and harassment in the letter which United sent me has not worked to do anything other than strengthen my resolve,’ she said.
‘I will continue to speak honestly, clearly and plainly about the state of healthcare in the United States of America.’
A spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group hit out at Potter’s post, in a statement to DailyMail.com, saying: ‘Intentionally spreading misinformation over social media is irresponsible and dangerous, and any physician who jeopardizes patient safety for social media clout undermines the trust in both the physician-patient relationship and health care in general.’
