“We’re pleased that Fairview Health signed the deal we’d previously agreed to,” Craig Stillman, the UnitedHealthcare Medicare CEO, said in a statement.
Fairview countered that the deal “is not the same proposal UnitedHealthcare had previously offered.”
Medicare Advantage is a private alternative to the government-run Medicare program. The plans feature low monthly costs and often include extra benefits for dental and vision care, but patients can face restrictions that steer them to smaller networks of doctors and hospitals. Original Medicare, by contrast, gives access to almost all health care providers, but beneficiaries are encouraged to buy Medicare Supplement policies, despite higher monthly costs, to avoid significant financial gaps with the coverage.
About 653,000 Minnesotans use Medicare Advantage plans offered by half a dozen different private health insurers.
The Fairview-UnitedHealthcare contract fight extended a trend of hospitals across the country balking at what they call unfair reimbursement rates and exasperating payment delays from Medicare Advantage health insurers.
Insurance companies reject the allegations, arguing that care providers have been trying to use their patients as leverage to argue for more money even as overall U.S. health care expenditures keep getting bigger.