Piedmont Newton Hospital in Covington, Ga., is the sixth and final hospital to drop out of UnitedHealthcare’s network. The network change is effective Jan. 31, 2017.
Contracts between Piedmont and UnitedHealthcare that covered five other Piedmont facilities expired July 1, affecting 150,000 patients. Both the health system and insurer blamed the contract terminations on reimbursement disagreements.
Regarding Newton Hospital’s departure from United’s network, Piedmont Healthcare CEO Kevin Brown said in a prepared statement, “We have asked United to negotiate consistently since last November. These efforts have produced no results and, in fact, United’s negotiating position has gone backward in the last month. As a result, we are out of network, we will remain out of network and we are planning for a future without United.”
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