Johns Hopkins, UnitedHealthcare end negotiations without contract

Johns Hopkins and UnitedHealthcare have ended contract discussions without an agreement, a Johns Hopkins Medicine official told 11 News.The two sides negotiated for more than eight months but were unable to come to an agreement, even after five deadline extensions.The contract disagreement wasn’t over money; it was a focus on policies that doctors said would have made it harder to provide care to patients.In a statement to 11 News, Kim Hoppe, vice president of public relations for Johns Hopkins Medicine, said:”Despite our best efforts to find common ground over the course of more than eight months of negotiations, Johns Hopkins Medicine and UnitedHealthcare have concluded contract discussions without reaching an agreement. UnitedHealthcare refused to agree to reasonable contract language, instead insisting that we agree to terms that would make it difficult for us to provide patient care. UnitedHealthcare had the opportunity to listen to our concerns in a meaningful way and prioritize what matters most: ensuring patients get the care they need, when they need it, without excessive delays or denials. Unfortunately, they chose profits over patients. We decided to make patients aware of this stalemate now, to provide our patients and their employers the time they need to explore alternative insurance options during the upcoming open enrollment season.”In a statement, Joseph Ochipinti, UnitedHealthcare CEO in the Mid-Atlantic region, said:”Johns Hopkins informed us today it is walking away from our negotiation because we will not agree to language that allows it to refuse treatment for any member with an employer-based plan it does not want to do business with. Johns Hopkins’ demands are unacceptable. We will not allow any health system to turn patients away at their discretion. We expect network providers to honor their commitment to care for the individuals and families who rely on them as in-network providers. A provider who selectively and unilaterally turns patients away—regardless of medical need or coverage—undermines the foundation of what it means to be a network provider. We remain at the negotiating table and ask Johns Hopkins to do what’s right for the people we serve by providing access to care for all patients.””It seems that this is not the only large physician that is dropping out of UnitedHealthcare,” Gene Ransom with the Maryland State Medical Society told 11 News last month.Ransom said physicians have been complaining to his organization for years about UnitedHealthcare practices.”United has always been one of the carriers that has been very aggressive with these fail-first policies, prior authorization, denial of claims, these types of insurance bureaucratic measures to cut costs by denying care. And they have been even more aggressive lately,” Ransom said in August. UnitedHealthcare said the negotiation only impacts Johns Hopkins providers in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Johns Hopkins provider locations in Florida will remain in its network. This story may be updated.