Here are five things to know about the issue.
1. The patients will be asked to pay hundreds of dollars in co-payments, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs that the clinic hadn’t attempted to collect throughout the past year and a half, according to the article.
2. Typically, the clinic would not bill patients for their share until after the claim has been paid by the State Employee Group Insurance Program, the organization said in a letter the clinic sent to about 5,000 patients. However, payments for certain plans are at a virtual halt during the ongoing state budget crisis, and with Springfield Clinic owed approximately $70 million, the clinic decided to break away from its standard billing practices and ask patients to pay their share of bills, even if the state’s share has not been paid, reports The State Journal-Register.
3. In its letter to patients, the clinic said it will issue statements for the patient co-insurance amount due for all services provided from this point forward, as well as for claims that have remained unpaid by the state for the past 12 to 18 months.
4. The changes are limited to patients covered by Cigna/Quality Care and HealthLink insurance plans. Outstanding amounts owed to the clinic by patients for their share of costs covered by those open-access plans total about $2 million, according to Mark Kuhn, the clinic’s chief administrative officer.
5. Springfield Clinic, a multi-specialty group practice of physicians, is not the only healthcare provider in Springfield dealing with record delays in payments related to a budget impasse that began in July 2015, according to the report. For instance, Memorial Health System, which delayed at least one multimillion-dollar building project because of the backlog, is owed $86 million by the state.
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