When they’re threatened with physicians dropping out of their network, they simply pass the buck to patients:
St. Joseph Health Services is a Catholic nonprofit that cares for many poor people in Rhode Island. Last year, UnitedHealthcare of New England tried to cut the hospital group from its provider network. The reason? After years of seeing little or no increases in payments for services, St. Joseph had demanded that the insurer raise its reimbursement levels.
UnitedHealthcare played hardball. It proceeded to threaten its customers with a huge 58-percent compounded hike in premiums if it had to start writing bigger checks to St. Joseph.
