The founder of a company that seeks to open a micro-hospital in the Boise area denies an Idaho health insurer’s allegations that it charges egregious amounts for emergency room services.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Blue Cross of Idaho testified before a state Senate committee that a freestanding hospital company with an emergency room in North Idaho was leveraging its out-of-network status to exploit a loophole in federal law.
The spokesperson said Nutex Health, based in Houston, is responsible for an outsized share of disputes in what’s called the independent dispute resolution process, where health insurers and providers go to settle disagreements over payment amounts. Nutex has one Idaho hospital, in Post Falls near Coeur d’Alene, and wants to build a second in Meridian…