Blue Cross, HCA agree to arbitrator
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Bill Steverson, director of communications for Blue Cross, told the Standard that Blue Cross is agreeable to appointing an outside mediator in an effort to move beyond the current impasse. He said state Sen. Jerry Cooper has been instrumental in getting the sides to work toward a compromise.
“I’m tickled both sides agreed to this,” said Cooper. “I believe it will help our people. It would have hurt Warren County more than any other area if the two sides couldn’t agree on a contract.”
River Park CEO Steve Otto reported late yesterday that HCA’s corporate office informed him they have also agreed to outside mediation.
“We are very open to a third party assisting us in finding a solution to the impasse,” Otto said, “as long as that solution addresses quality, accessibility and affordability of health care costs.”
Just as important, out-of-network fees for Blue Cross Blue Shield patients will continue to be waived at River Park through March. That means Blue Cross patients will have incurred no additional out-of-network expenses if this dispute is settled by the end of March.
Steverson said Blue Cross would accept a negotiator chosen by Gov. Phil Bredeson, but suggested that Metro Nashville, which is one of the company’s biggest customer bases, might want to have some input as well. Steverson says the main issue is rising health care costs and the effect it is having on both companies.
“It has always been about price and affordability,” Steverson said. “As you know, and everybody else knows, the cost of medical care and insurance premiums have been going up at very steep rates over the past few years. And we have been hearing from our members more and more often that they want us to stand up for them and to keep health care costs affordable.”
Steverson says Blue Cross, like HCA, has had particular concerns about some of the rural hospitals in the HCA TriStar group since the loss of Blue Cross coverage could have a more substantial effect on those facilities due to the fact they are the only hospitals in their communities.
There are four facilities in Tennessee that fall under that category: Horizon Medical Center in Dixon, Grandview Medical Center in Jasper, Northcrest Medical Center in Springfield, and River Park Hospital here in McMinnville.
“In our earliest discussions with HCA, we said let’s negotiate those four hospitals separately from the rest of them,” Steverson said, “and HCA said no, that they wanted to negotiate HCA as an entity.”
But Steverson says Blue Cross would still be willing to treat the sole-provider hospitals should negotiations resume with a mediator.
“We are open to mediation with HCA, even if they want to split out those four and just mediate them,” he said. “We would be agreeable to that.”
Otto says that is true. HCA does want to treat all its hospitals equally, whether metropolitan or rural, and not necessarily break out any hospitals as a separate entity.
“Whatever we would agree to here, we’d want to include in all of our hospitals,” Otto said.
Steverson also wanted to address emergency services for Blue Cross members.
“The other point I want to make is that emergency care is provided at any hospital by us,” he said. “So if it’s a true emergency we encourage all of our members to go to the closest hospital.”
Those visits will be covered at Blue Cross’ standard in network rates, according to Steverson, but he stressed this will be for true, life-threatening emergencies, not flu or minor injuries treated in the emergency room.