Blue Cross, Community Medical Centers Reach Deal
Community Medical Centers and Blue Cross of California last week reached a two-year contract agreement that will affect 140,000 Medi-Cal beneficiaries whose services are administered by the health plan, the Fresno Bee reports (Correa, Fresno Bee, 2/1). The existing contract was set to expire Jan. 31 (California Healthline, 12/15/06).
The agreement was made after seven months of negotiations between both parties. Community had threatened to stop seeing Blue Cross' Medi-Cal beneficiaries if the health plan did not increase its reimbursement rates.
Details of the agreement were not released, but Community spokesperson John Zelezny said the new contract "includes a significant reimbursement increase for our hospitals."
Community officials in December said that the hospital system wanted a rate increase because the cost of services was exceeding payments from Blue Cross by about $17 million annually (Fresno Bee, 2/1).