NAPLES, Fla. — The clock is ticking for Naples Community Hospital (NCH) and Florida Blue to strike a deal before the September 30 deadline, and it could have big consequences for over 40,000 patients in the area.
On Tuesday, NCH held an open house to update locals on their ongoing dispute with Florida Blue. NCH says the insurance company isn’t paying them enough for the healthcare services they provide and hasn’t kept up with rising costs. Florida Blue sees it differently, claiming they’ve offered reasonable rate increases and that NCH is asking for too much.
See FOX 4 Mahmoud Bennett's Full Report Below:
"So really what NCH is looking for is a fair payment rate," said John Kling, NCH’s chief operations officer. "We know from publicly reported data that’s published by Florida Blue that NCH gets paid 30-40% less than other healthcare systems in our markets."
If a deal isn’t reached by September 30, Florida Blue insurance holders using NCH will be considered out-of-network, meaning they’ll have to pay more each visit. But Kling reassured the community that emergency care will still be covered.
"So we have about 40,000 members that we know of with Florida Blue in our community," said Kling. "If we went out of network, that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to care for patients. Florida Blue, any healthcare insurance, actually pays for emergency care whether they’re on or out of network," he added.
Florida Blue responded, accusing NCH of a "misleading marketing campaign".
“We're asking NCH to do their part in addressing the spiraling cost of health care services and improving care delivery. Clinical inefficiency drives up the cost of health care for everyone, and we expect NCH to use its market dominance and scale to improve performance and deliver value to our members. Unfortunately, NCH leaders have refused to work with us on these issues," Florida Blue said in a statement dated September 16th.
Both NCH and Florida Blue say they’re still committed to reaching a deal before the October 1 deadline.
"We don’t want this to impact our patients, our community. We want to continue offering the great care we have for over 65 years," said Kling. He added "The best case scenario is that we come to an agreement before this ends, but if that doesn’t happen, then we will be out of network October 1st."
