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United Healthcare Could Be Dropped at Portage County, Ohio, Hospital

Posted on: Thursday, 22 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Sep. 22--Unless a new deal is struck, people insured by United Healthcare won't be able to get their medical care covered at Portage County's only hospital beginning early next year.

Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna sent out a letter this week to Portage County employers informing them that the county-owned hospital plans to quit doing business with United Healthcare on Feb. 1.

The letter arrived in mailboxes at a time when many employers are selecting which insurance company they want to use next year.

"We have been in discussion with United Healthcare for several months and have been unable to come to an agreement that will allow us to continue to provide adequate care to your enrollees," Robinson President and Chief Executive Stephen Colecchi stated in the letter. "... We are troubled to have to end our relationship with United Healthcare, but we cannot allow quality of care to suffer by agreeing to a contract with inadequate reimbursement."

But the news came as a surprise to United Healthcare, which has been waiting to get a counterproposal from the hospital during negotiations for a new contract, said Debora Spano, spokeswoman for the insurance company. "They shouldn't be involving employers at this stage," she said.

In the letter, Colecchi said the hospital is providing advance notice so companies "have the ability to change health-care benefits to organizations that include Robinson Memorial Hospital and its employed physicians."

In the meantime, negotiations will continue, said Carl Ebner, Robinson's vice president of finance.

"We will work very diligently to reach a deal, as long as it's what we consider to be a fair deal," he said.

United Healthcare, with more than 293,000 enrollees in Northeast Ohio, is Robinson's fourth-largest managed-care contract.

The hospital gets about 3.5 percent of its business from United Healthcare, Ebner said.

Robinson is losing money on its current deal, he said.

"We entered into an agreement a year and a half ago that is substantially lower than our other managed-care contracts and below our costs," Ebner said. "We've done a very good job here of keeping costs down, but in order to continue, we need to at least be covering our costs, as well as providing for some of the bad debt and charity care we provide."

Spano declined further comment, saying, "we don't negotiate in the press."

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Source: Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio)

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