LUBBOCK, Texas — Texas Tech Health Science Center and Texas Tech Physicians announced they might part ways with UnitedHealthcare by March 31, if they cannot come to an agreement about reimbursement rates.
TTP wants the insurance company to pay their providers more due to the rising cost of health care, as the last contact negotiation the two had was 13 years ago.
Expectant mother Jessica Gilbert is 27 weeks along, and when she received a letter in the mail a few weeks ago, she thought about how her and her boyfriend would be affected by the dispute.
“Our copay right now is 20 percent that we would pay and it would switch to 50 percent out of network. So, a huge jump. And then our self-pay option, we owe about, $3,600 for just the prenatal care for the nine months with Patterson. And it would jump from $3,600 to $4,600. So, about a $1,000 difference. Not too crazy, but definitely it’s a little scarier knowing that we don’t have the cushion of insurance to back us up if we went the self-pay route,” said Gilbert…