Healthcare on the line
Hospitals in negotiation as Riverhead Town waits
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Another deadline looms for East End hospitals, this time affecting people insured by either Health Insurance Plan of New York or Group Health Inc. This includes 56 Riverhead Town employees who are covered by HIP, according to Bill Rothaar, the town's chief financial officer. He said another 259 active employees and 115 retirees are covered by GHI, also known as New York State Empire.
If a contract isn't secured or deadlines extended, Peconic Bay Medical Center and Southampton Hospital will be out of network with HIP as of midnight Friday, Sept. 19 and with GHI as of Oct. 5. For Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport, the deadline with both insurers is Nov. 13.
"While the hospitals are making every effort to ensure that ongoing negotiations are productive and result in a new, equitable and timely contract, we are currently not seeing the progress we had hoped," Paul Connor III, ELIH president and CEO and spokesman for the new East End Health Alliance, said in a written statement.
While Southold Town employees are covered by a self-insured arrangement administered by Island Group, Riverhead Town employees choose between HIP and New York State Empire, according to Supervisor Phil Cardinale. He has spoken with Peconic Bay Medical Center president and CEO Andrew Mitchell and been assured that negotiations are ongoing and there is reason to believe there could be a settlement, Mr. Cardinale said.
But failing that, he promised the town would "make the effort to speak with Empire to try to accommodate" those currently covered by HIP as rapidly as possible.
"It is critical to quality patient care ... that our insurance reimbursement rates keep pace with the costs of providing patient care," Mr. Connor said. Costs continue to increase and reimbursements aren't sufficient, he said.
A spokeswoman for Emblem Health, the parent company of both HIP and GHI, was surprised the hospital alliance issued a press statement.
"We negotiate in good faith and are committed to an open process with them," Ilene Margolin, vice president for communications and public relations, said. But it's Emblem Health's policy not to take talks public, she said. The company hopes the interaction with the hospital alliance will reach a satisfactory resolution, she said.
At the same time, she said Emblem Health was surprised that it received the alliance proposal for a new contract a little more than a week ago. Until then, company officials had no indication that a new contract wouldn't be signed, she said.
Contracts are very specific about termination dates and means of notification, Mr. Connor said. There was no reason for Emblem Health to be surprised by the need to renegotiate, he said. But he disputed that Emblem received its first notification this month. The alliance's first proposal went to the company before July 4, Mr. Connor said.
Talks were continuing on Wednesday, according to Mr. Connor. But he wouldn't characterize their likelihood of success or comment on whether an extension of the deadlines might be forthcoming.
"I've been around long enough to know that discussions are one thing, but the real stuff on the table is what we need," he said.
Back in June, the three hospitals inked a new pact with Oxford/UnitedHealthcare only after three deadline extensions. Details of such agreements aren't made public, but both sides expressed satisfaction with the results.
Alliance hospitals will post updates on the talks at www.healli.org.
jlane@timesreview.com
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