Community Health & Wellness
United HealthCare, VMFH agree on new multi-year contract
National insurance giant UnitedHealthcare announced a new, multi-year contract with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health on Thursday, allowing its clients to continue receiving in-network access at VMFH facilities.
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Terms of the new agreement were not disclosed, but it allows United members to continue receiving in-network care at all eight VMFH hospital as well as its clinics and urgent cares. VMFH operates St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor, St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale and other facilities in the region.
Around 90,000 patients in the Puget Sound region covered by United rely on VMFH facilities, according to the hospital system. About 82% of those patients are on government insurance.
“The new agreement will ensure all United-insured patients continue to have in-network access to all VMFH hospitals, clinics and providers,” VMFH wrote in a statement posted to its website. “We know these negotiations were stressful for our patients, the communities we serve, and our own team members. We sincerely appreciate your understanding during the negotiations.”
United customers on commercial, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid insurance plans were notified in a November letter that they could lose in-network access to facilities under the VMFH umbrella if the insurance company did not negotiate a new contract with the VMFH. The lapse would have left United members on the Kitsap Peninsula without an in-network hospital.
The new deal comes days before an end-of-the-year deadline, when United members would have lost in-network access to Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle.
VMFH also operates hospitals in Tacoma, Lakewood, Federal Way, Burien and Enumclaw.
Conor Wilson is a Murrow News fellow, reporting for Gig Harbor Now and the Kitsap Sun, a daily newspaper based in Bremerton, through a program managed by Washington State University.