Massachusetts health insurer Point32Health announced a new four-year agreement with Tenet Healthcare, ensuring continued service for approximately 17,000 of its customers at four hospitals.
The deal, completed just days before the current agreement was set to expire on New Year’s Day, keeps Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Framingham Union Hospital, Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick, and Worcester Surgical Center within the insurer’s network.
Negotiations, which reached a stalemate in the fall, concluded with an agreement late Monday. While Point32Health did not disclose the terms of the agreement, the insurer stated the contract spans all its insurance offerings, including plans under Tufts and Harvard Pilgrim, as well as Medicaid and Medicare, The Boston Globe reported.
Carolyn Jackson, chief executive of Saint Vincent and MetroWest Medical Center (which includes Framingham Union and Leonard Morse), stated, “We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Point32Health to ensure their members are able to maintain access to the critical healthcare services we provide.”
Previously, in October, Jackson indicated that negotiations were not progressing in good faith, a claim that Point32Health later attributed to Tenet’s demands for significant rate increases. Point32Health claimed that Tenet requested annual rate increases in the double digits for multiple commercial plans, far exceeding the state’s 3.6% benchmark for healthcare spending increases, as reported by The Boston Globe.
In a December 11 letter to the commissioner of the state Division of Insurance, several state lawmakers seemed to hold Point32Health responsible for the deadlock. On Monday, as the likelihood of reaching an agreement before New Year’s Day seemed slim, State Representative James O’Day (D – 14th Worcester District), one of the letter’s signatories, raised concerns about Point32Health’s financial priorities. O’Day noted that Point32Health reported having limited resources, yet had recently purchased Health New England, a Springfield-based insurance subsidiary of Baystate Health, for $165 million.
“Are the folks up in Western Mass. more important than my constituents in Central Mass.?” said O’Day. “I don’t think so.”
A spokesperson for Point32Health stated to The Boston Globe on Monday, “All our members are important.”
As of January 1, patients covered under Tufts Health Direct plan will no longer have network access to Boston Children’s Hospital and UMass Memorial Health in Worcester due to an unmet agreement between Point32Health and these health systems. Most people with Tufts Health Direct purchase their plan through the Massachusetts Health Connector.
