A web page that had blasted Envision, as recently as this past weekend, for allegedly 'price gouging' emergency department patients has been updated to say only that a contract extension has been agreed upon.
A public tussle between the largest health insurer in the U.S. and one of the nation's biggest employers of physicians came to a close Tuesday, with the two sides announcing they have agreed to a contract extension.
The heated negotiations between UnitedHealthcare and Envision Healthcare prompted some disconcerting headlines that warned millions could be hit with surprise emergency department bills next month when Envision's approximately 25,000 emergency physicians and clinicians would have suddenly been considered out-of-network.
That threat, however, has subsided, according to a brief notice posted on the UnitedHealthcare website. The notice said simply that the contract had been extended for an unspecified length of time to cover Envision's hospital-based services for all plan participants.
The page on which the notice was posted had as recently as Sunday blasted Envision by name for allegedly "price gouging [ED] patients and demanding to be paid twice as much as what emergency services typically cost."
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The page also included links to documents that described Envision's coast-to-coast operations as part of "a national problem with deep local impact." But those documents appeared Tuesday to have been removed from UnitedHealthcare's website entirely, supplanted by the two-paragraph announcement.
Envision confirmed the deal in a separate statement Tuesday morning.
"We believe this is an opportunity for clinicians and payors to work together to make progress toward a more effective healthcare system," Envision President and CEO Christopher A. Holden said in the statement.
Steven Porter is an associate content manager and Strategy editor for HealthLeaders, a Simplify Compliance brand.