UC Health and United Healthcare blamed each other Thursday for not reaching a deal to keep the academic medical facility and its doctors in the network that 5,000 older and disabled United customers use to obtain care. UC Health officials said the problem was United Healthcare's national strategy to get "higher-cost patients" away from academic medical facilities. In response, United Healthcare officials said UC Health, among other things, would not accept performance incentives for doctors. UC denied that. A three-year contract expired at midnight Wednesday for the medical system to provide services to all the insurance carrier's customers in Greater Cincinnati.
