Managed Care Report
Managed Care Report
• Partners National Health Plans of North Carolina (Winston-Salem, NC) has signed a definitive agreement with Kaiser Foundation Health Plan to transfer Kaiser’s employer-sponsored and Medicare membership in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area to Partners. Partners is a subsidiary of Novant Health. The sale is expected to close on or before Dec. 31, contingent upon regulatory and other customary approvals. For now, Kaiser members should receive care as they currently do, Kaiser said. In addition, members can also look forward to receiving care from their Permanente physicians after the sale is completed because of an agreement reached between Partners and The Carolina Permanente Medical Group, the independent physician practice that provides healthcare to Kaiser members.
• Health Alliance Plan is dropping service this week for about 3,000 of its poor and disabled HMO members to cut costs, reported the Detroit Free Press. In many cases, those patients must choose another health plan and a new primary care physician, officials told the Free Press. The members will have until the end of September to select a new HMO, but can receive care during the month at any medical facility on a fee-for-service basis thorough Medicaid.
• SunStar Healthcare (Heathrow, FL) retained its listing on the Nasdaq SmallCap Market and said that as of last week, its stock will be traded under the symbol SUNS. SunStar said Nasdaq determined it complied with all requirements for continued listing. SunStar received exemption from Nasdaq’s net tangible assets requirement for its common shares to continue to be listed on the SmallCap Market until Aug. 16. During that period, the company’s trading symbol was changed to SUNSC.
• SelectCare (Troy, MI) is up for sale. The company’s four-hospital ownership group - St. John Health System (Detroit), Oakwood Healthcare (Dearborn, MI), William Beaumont Hospitals (Royal Oak, MI), and Providence Hospital and Medical Centers (Southfield, MI) - has hired investment banking firm Shattuck Hammond Partners (New York) to help find a suitable purchaser, reported the Detroit Free Press. Analysts say SelectCare, which insures more than 388,000 people, is an attractive buy, and a consolidated managed care market benefits the industry and consumers. SelectCare’s buyer would likely pass on lower costs to health insurance purchasers after efficiencies created from consolidating administrative operations, the Free Press reported. Service could also improve, officials say. SelectCare frustrated hospitals, doctors, and consumers earlier this year after it stopped processing claims for two months to make its computer system Y2K compliant, the Free Press reported.
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