{"id":190365,"date":"2026-05-12T18:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190365\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T18:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T18:06:18","slug":"lvhn-waiting-on-unitedhealthcare-to-make-next-move-in-dispute-ceo-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/190365\/","title":{"rendered":"LVHN waiting on UnitedHealthcare to make next move in dispute, CEO says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jefferson Health\u2019s CEO said the network is waiting for UnitedHealthCare to make the next move in stalled contract negotiations<\/a> with Lehigh Valley Health Network.<\/p>\n

Thousands of LVHN patients with UnitedHealthCare Medicare Advantage and commercial health insurance are now out of network with LVHN, after negotiations on a new contract failed. <\/p>\n

Dr. Joseph Cacchione shared some more information about what is going with the UnitedHealthCare negotiations during a visit Monday to the Lehigh Valley to be a guest on WFMZ TV\u2019s Business Matters Special Edition with Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tony Iannelli.<\/p>\n

UnitedHealthcare has contended that LVHN already has some of the highest-paid hospitals in the state, and that a proposal LVHN made would amount to 20% price hike. However, Cacchione said that LVHN made a new proposal as recently as three weeks ago, and the ball is back in UHC\u2019s court.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to even conceptualize how United could think of saying anything \u2014 after posting record profits for this past quarter \u2014 about anybody being greedy,\u201d Cacchione said. \u201cIt\u2019s really kind of laughable that they say Lehigh is being greedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

UnitedHealthCare reported $111.7 billion in consolidated revenues for the first quarter of 2026. Cacchione said while he understands United has a duty to its shareholders, Jefferson has a duty to the communities it serves.<\/p>\n

He said Jefferson and LVHN\u2019s biggest sticking point throughout this process is that United has not paid what is owed to them under the previous contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a contract with United, an existing rate fee schedule. United came to us and said, \u2018If we create a new product for a new business only, can we have a little bit lower of a rate?\u2019 And we said, \u2018Sure, on new business only.\u2019 They then applied that rate to all the existing business for the whole valley. And over the past four years, that\u2019s totaled up to almost $150 million dollars that they have underpaid Lehigh Valley, predating Jefferson.\u201d<\/p>\n

The contract dispute only affects legacy LVHN hospitals and health care providers. Jefferson hospitals and providers remain in network.<\/p>\n

Cacchione said that LVHN, Jefferson and an independent arbitrator have all requested the data on how UHC determined what was new business and what was old business, and they have refused to provide it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re trying to wait us out because they have billions,\u201d Cacchione said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jefferson Health\u2019s CEO said the network is waiting for UnitedHealthCare to make the next move in stalled contract…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,1057,433,182,139,434,28,6519],"class_list":["post-190365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-health","tag-lehigh-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-northampton-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-hzs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}