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Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina says it will work with customers in Cabarrus County to ensure uninterrupted access to affordable health care following NorthEast Medical Center’s decision last month to stop accepting the insurer’s customers as patients.
NorthEast, which is located in Concord, informed Blue Cross and Blue Shield in June that the hospital would no longer participate in the insurer’s networks, effective Sept. 12.
Next week Blue Cross and Blue Shield will send letters to about 3,500 members in Cabarrus and Rowan counties explaining the steps families should take to ensure that they can continue to see a primary care physician near home.
The letters ask customers who see a physician at a practice owned by NorthEast to choose a new physician. Members may still use the hospital in emergency situations.
The company will also contact members seeing a specialist at NorthEast-owned practices for an ongoing or chronic health condition.
Officials from both NorthEast and Blue Cross and Blue Shield say they are willing to work with each other, but the situation remains at a standstill.
“We have tried for several weeks to work this out with the hospital,” said Milo Brunick, the insurer’s vice president of networks. “They have not wavered from their demands for increased fees or their decision to leave our networks. We are doing everything we can to help our customers through what we know can be a difficult situation.”
NorthEast officials see it differently.
“The hospital took the unusual course of offering the absolute best price any insurance company will have with NorthEast, plus an additional discount,” said Larry Hinsdale, CEO of NorthEast. “We thought anybody would take that.”
He said hospital officials are willing to talk, but Sept. 12 is the deadline.
Certainly, Hinsdale added, the facility will feel the impact of patients lost, but it cannot agree with what Blue Cross and Blue Shield is asking.
NorthEast is not the only provider in the region at odds with Blue Cross and Blue Shield. High Point Regional Health System announced Thursday that it will discontinue all contracts with the insurer by November.
Fred Hartman, Blue Cross and Blue Shield spokesman, said the insurer is still in negotiations with the High Point hospital.
High Point Regional’s Eric Fletcher said the discontinuation of the contracts was a formality. He said that High Point Regional will continue to negotiate and will work hard to continue care for Blue Cross and Blue Shield patients.
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