CHI St. Vincent, one of the largest health care providers in the state, has reached a multiyear agreement with UnitedHealthcare, ending an impasse over reimbursement rates that threatened to leave the insurance carriers’ customers out of CHI’s network.
The agreement went into effect April 9 and allows patients to maintain in-network access to all CHI St. Vincent services across existing contracted products, including UnitedHealthcare and Medicare Advantage, CHI said in a news release Tuesday.
CHI St. Vincent worked with UnitedHealthcare of Minnetonka, Minnesota, to reach an agreement, “with the end goal to ensure that it could continue to meet the needs of Arkansas patients today and in the future,” according to the news release.
“We appreciate CHI St. Vincent’s collaboration as we worked to ensure the people we collectively serve have uninterrupted access to quality, affordable care,” UnitedHealthcare said in a statement to Arkansas Business.
In February, Chad Aduddell, market president of CHI St. Vincent, told Arkansas Business that CHI could be out of UnitedHealthcare’s network on April 1 if a disagreement over reimbursement rates wasn’t resolved. (There was an extension that allowed patients to continue to have coverage since April 1.)
“In order for us to be in network, we’re going to have to reach a proposal that’s financially sustainable for St. Vincent,” he said in February.
CHI said it was seeking a “very modest increase” from UnitedHealthcare.
CHI said it was pleased with the new agreement.
“The agreement allows CHI St. Vincent to continue its mission of delivering quality, affordable health care to patients today and for generations to come at its primary care, specialty clinics, urgent care, hospitals, home health, rehabilitation and surgery centers across the state,” the news release said.
CHI St. Vincent has hospitals in Little Rock, Hot Springs, Sherwood and Morrilton.
“We are excited to have reached an agreement with UnitedHealthcare,” Aduddell said. “We are proud to continue to provide them with in-network access to local, high-quality care.”
CHI St. Vincent covers about 70,000 UnitedHealthcare patients, about 15,000 through its commercially insured product, and about 55,000 through Medicare Advantage.
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