Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is shaking up its network.
The health insurance company announced Tuesday is adding UnityPoint Methodist Hospital. That news comes at the same time OSF healthcare announced it’s withdrawing from the Blue Cross-Blue Shield PPO network.
Randy Billings is a Senior Vice President with OSF HealthCare. He says the insurance company terminated its hospital contracts with Peoria, Rockford and Galesburg effective January 1, 2018.
“Without those hospitals that Blue Cross terminated, we felt that we were forced to terminate other hospitals that can’t now refer to those facilities,” Billings said. “So our other seven hospitals in the OSF system were terminated because we can’t provide care across the entire continuum.”
But Methodist Hospital has, in many cases, been able to provide that continuum of care for Blue Cross patients while it’s been outside the network. This is the first time in 30-years the Peoria hospital will be in the Blue Cross PPO network.
Meantime, Billings says OSF is encouraging its Blue Cross patients to visit its website for other plans that will allow them to continued coverage in its continuum of care. Billings also says OSF remains hopeful it might still come to an agreement with Blue Cross before January first.