Oklahoma families caught in fight between insurance company, hospital group
By Alyse Jones
Click here for updates on this story
OKLAHOMA CITY (KOCO) — Oklahoma families are caught in the middle of a fight between an insurance company and a local hospital group.
United HealthCare no longer has a contract with OU Health. Now, families have to look for new places to go for care but OU Health might be their only option in the state.
“With insurance, my job offers it, it’s a mess,” said Jonna Wolf Davison, mother with United HealthCare.
Families are panicked as United HealthCare and OU Health split ways.
“We brought in an outside consultant, and they said they’ve never seen an insurance company behave like this,” said Robert Mannel, MD, director at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center.
The two sides are still negotiating a possible return. In a statement, United HealthCare said they’re searching for affordable health care, saying in part, “OU Health is already the most expensive hospital in Oklahoma” and that if they accept OU’s proposal it “would be 34% more costly than other hospitals.”
“With COVID, the escalating cost of providing health care due to labor shortages, and of course inflation — is affecting medicine just like it’s affecting everybody else,” Mannel said.
Families using this provider are now looking at their options.
“There are sick children that are waiting months,” Wolf Davison said.
They wonder if they can stay in-state or have to take their children elsewhere.
“I was going to call and see if there was out-of-state options, I’m willing to leave,” Wolf Davison said.
OU Health said some of their services can’t be found anywhere else in the state, as they have the state’s only level one trauma center, as well as a cancer center and children’s hospital with certain specialties.
“It’s just not reality to expect the citizens of Oklahoma to have to leave their state and drive into another state to receive the type of care they are,” Mannel said. “One out of every eight to nine of our patients is a United Healthcare patient. It’s just not the right thing, It’s not the right thing for the health care system and it’s not the right thing for our patients.”
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
