Case Explained: Non-Argument Calendar JOHN SHUNG v. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Filed: 2026-08-13 Docket: 3:25-cv-00120-MCR-ZCB The eleventh-circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of John Shung’s complaint seeking judicial review of a Medicare Advantage plan’s denial of reimbursement for laboratory tests. The court held that the district court correctly determined it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the amount in controversy did not meet the statutory threshold required for federal judicial review under 42 U.S.C. §§ 405(g) and 1395w-22(g)(5). The court applied the standard of de novo review for questions of subject-matter jurisdiction and statutory interpretation. Under Medicare regulations, a beneficiary must exhaust administrative appeals to obtain a final agency decision before seeking judicial review, which is contingent upon meeting an inflation-adjusted amount-in-controversy threshold. For requests filed on or after January 1, 2025, the applicable threshold was $1,900. The court found that Shung’s claim for $1,658.62 fell short of this requirement. The court rejected Shung’s arguments that the 2021 threshold should apply (noting even the 2021 threshold was $1,760), that interest and costs could be aggregated to meet the amount, or that he could aggregate claims from other years, as the latter argument was raised for the first time in a reply brief. Consequently, because Shung failed to establish an amount in controversy exceeding the necessary statutory threshold, judicial review was unavailable, and the dismissal of his complaint was upheld. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.