Late last Friday, thousands of patients were still waiting to hear whether Piedmont Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia would settle a contract dispute that's been dragging out for almost six months. The answer came at 12:05 AM Saturday morning when a (conveniently timed) BCBS press release announced that the contract expired and would not be renewed. The expiration will impact 131,000 area members who will now have to pay higher out-of-pocket costs if they want to continue to use Piedmont doctors or hospitals.
The contract dispute was, not surprisingly, over how much Blue Cross would pay Piedmont for its services. The insurer claims Piedmont was charging unreasonable rates, but Piedmont says its rates are in line with what insurers pay other hospitals. The companies have waged a very public war of words over the dispute and both have urged members to contact the other company to express their concern. Over the last three weeks, meanwhile, Piedmont has filed two separate lawsuits against BCBS. Unfortunately, negotiations between the two parties failed, and now thousands of Atlantans have to face the difficult choice of paying more for healthcare or leaving their current healthcare provider.
- read this article [1] for more
- see the BCBS press release [2]
PLUS: Community Hospital and Springfield Regional Cancer Center did not reach an agreement with United Healthcare and the companies' contract expired on Friday. The ensurer and the health providers could not agree on rates and 34,000 patients will have to pay more to use the two facilities. Article [3]
Links:
[1] http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/0630meshblue.html
[2] http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060701/nysa002.html?.v=60
[3] http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/content/news/stories/2006/07/01/sns0701united.html