Area patients insured by Regence BlueShield might need to seek providers outside Tacoma-based MultiCare health system if negotiations do not resolve a current financial standoff.
Regence, in a blog post on its site published this week, stated that MultiCare’s leaders issued a contract termination “to demand a double-digit increase in addition to the increase in rates they already agreed to.”
The message was part of a notification requirement for its members within 30 days of any potential provider termination, including the blog post and letters sent to members.
Patients are caught in the middle, with estimates in the “hundreds of thousands” of people affected, according to the insurer.
Regence serves more than more than 3.4 million people through its four-state operations. Each Regence health plan is a nonprofit independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
Regence BlueShield, its health plan in Washington, serves more than 1.4 million people.
If a resolution is not reached by March 1, the following MultiCare hospitals in the Tacoma/Pierce County area would be out of network for those covered by Regence “for all line of business, including Medicare Advantage,” according to the insurer: Allenmore, Tacoma General, Good Samaritan, Mary Bridge Children’s as well as Deaconess Hospital in Spokane, Valley Hospital in Spokane Valley, Covington Medical Center and Auburn Medical Center.