In Western PA we are seeing ads where an Insurance company isn't working with a hospital chain...

[diabeticman]

In the Pittsburgh are/Western PA UPMC is a chain of various hospitals. In the town we live in the hospital is considered a UPMC hospital. My wife and I have been seeing ads saying Highmark is trying to undermined UPMC and other ads saying UPMC is just greedy money hungry.

What exactly is happening AND I do have BC/BS will this effect my care?

The ads give so little detail and confusing ones that I'm not sure what to think or begin to understand.

Does anyone know if anything like this is happening in other states?


(Cross thread PA group)

[Warpy]

1. The insurance company is trying to get the hospital to accept lower fees

and the hospital wants to get higher fees. That's all that's going on, bean counters in each are battling each other. The hospital is unlikely to give in because they're already at rock bottom and the insurance company wants to push the payments down so it can have six months of feeding off the system before ACA kicks in fully on Jan 1.

It's a money squabble. It has nothing to do with the care you will receive or Blue Cross paying your claim.

[diabeticman]

2. thank you for that info.

[Sgent]

3. As long as its a different insurance company (Highmark)

rather than your personal insurance company (BC/BS) you'll be fine.

That said, if the hospital and BC/BS get into it later this year or whenever the contract is up for renewal, if the hospital and insurer cannot agree to a fee schedule then the hospital will start to be considered out-of-network, which could have huge impact on you.