New Massachusetts health plan for immigrants limits network

Many immigrants will no longer be able to get care from three major Boston-area healthcare networks as of Oct 1, when the state's new health plan for 31,000 legal immigrants begins. Executives of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Medical Center, and Cambridge Health Alliance said that they were denied contracts by the insurance company selected by the state to serve the immigrants. That denial, the hospital officials said, will mean that many of their roughly 10,000 patients will face significant disruptions as they are forced to find new physicians in the network of state-subsidized CeltiCare Health Plan of Massachusetts and their records are transferred to new providers, reports the Boston Globe.