The Daily Sun printed a front page article on The Villages Health system sale and how patients can make the most of their care on Thursday, November 20th.
The article stated that “much of the transition has been seamless so far.” What? Seamless for who? Not for the approximately 25,000 patients of The Villages Health that have UnitedHealthcare (UHC)! Most of these individuals are currently in a “panic mode”, since UnitedHealthcare and CenterWell have not yet reached a contract agreement. This means that CenterWell will bump all UnitedHealthcare members off of their network after December 31st if an agreement is not reached. Layered upon that is the fact that open enrollment for dropping or switching to another Medicare Advantage Plan started on October 15th and will end shortly, on December 7th.
The Daily Sun’s article stated that “nearly half of CenterWell’s 55,000 patients are wondering if they will need to choose between keeping their doctor or keeping their insurance provider.” The reality is that most of these patients, a large portion of them being elderly and vulnerable, are in a highly stressful, frustrating, anxiety-ridden situation.
Many major media news entities outside of The Villages (such as WKMG 6, Fox 35, etc.) have been featuring this story (including interviewing UCH members that utilize The Villages Health) highlighting the terrible situation that this has created for UHC members, and how it is negatively impacting them. The Daily Sun has not yet published one article highlighting the negative impact on UHC patients and they are our local newspaper! This is a disservice to their readers…