In a last minute, last effort situation, one of the state’s largest hospital systems and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield renewed their contract. The agreement follows months of negotiations and allows Anthem’s 1.8 million Indiana customers to continue to receive reduced-cost care at St. Vincent’s 16 hospitals.
If an agreement had not been reached by Saturday at midnight, Anthem customers would have been considered “out of network” and would have faced higher charges for care at St. Vincent facilities.
An Anthem spokesperson said there seemed “to be a renewed sense of urgency on both sides.
The contract is a multiyear deal, said a St. Vicent spokesperson.
St. Vincent officials had said they were trying to secure fair reimbursement rates from the insurer, a subsidiary of Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. Hospitals often depend on the profit they make from patients with private insurance to help offset the losses from unprofitable departments and charity care they provide to the uninsured.
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