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Premier Health Deal Restores In-Network Care For Thousands Of UHC Policyholders

Miami Valley Hospital.
Joshua Chenault
/
WYSO

UnitedHealthcare and Premier Health have reached a contract agreement. The deal restores in-network access to Premier doctors and facilities for nearly 200,000 UnitedHealthcare policyholders.

Last spring, contract talks between Dayton-based Premier and Minnesota-based insurance giant UnitedHealth Group broke down. The impasse left at least 60,000 Premier Health patients out of network with their doctors.

A temporary special discounted flat fee offered by Premier last year to help patients maintain their medical care expired December 31, 2017.

The new, "multi-year relationship," affects UnitedHealthcare commercial and Medicare Advantage policyholders, renewing in-network access to all Premier Health facilities and physicians, effective Jan. 1, 2018. 

"We are very happy to have found common ground and a way that Premier Health and UnitedHealthcare can work collaboratively to extend quality, patient-centered care in our communities,” Mary Boosalis, president and CEO of Premier Health, said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to working with UnitedHealthcare to continue serving our community and having a positive impact for its members who live and work in our service area.”

“Our priority is ensuring the people we serve have access to quality, cost effective health care,” said Kurt Lewis, CEO of UnitedHealthcare of Ohio. “Premier Health is an important community provider and partner and we are pleased to renew our relationship on behalf of the tens of thousands of people we serve across southwest Ohio.”

Jess Mador comes to WYSO from Knoxville NPR-station WUOT, where she created an interactive multimedia health storytelling project called TruckBeat, one of 15 projects around the country participating in AIR's Localore: #Finding America initiative. Before TruckBeat, Jess was an independent public radio journalist based in Minneapolis. She’s also worked as a staff reporter and producer at Minnesota Public Radio in the Twin Cities, and produced audio, video and web stories for a variety of other news outlets, including NPR News, APM, and PBS television stations. She has a Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She loves making documentaries and telling stories at the intersection of journalism, digital and social media.
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