East End Health Alliance And Aetna Reach Agreement

The East End Health Alliance on Monday afternoon reached a verbal agreement with health care insurance provider Aetna on a new contract, hours before a midnight deadline on March 1 that would have put the three area hospitals out of network with the provider.

The new, two-year contract is expected to be finalized this week, according to Paul J. Connor, a spokesman for the alliance and president and CEO of Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport. The other two hospitals that make up the alliance are Southampton Hospital and Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead.

With the agreement, which was under negotiation for several months, Aetna insurance will continue to be accepted at the three hospitals. Approximately 15,000 patients visiting the three East End hospitals over the past 12 months were insured by Aetna, according to Susan Millerick, the director of communications for the company.

“We’ve agreed now on the parameters of the deal,” Mr. Connor said. “It has to be written up in terms of a contract and rate-sheets, and that has to be approved by both sides to ensure what we’ve agreed on verbally actually happens in the contract.

“No one’s out of network,” he continued. “No one was dislocated. There were no problems with that, so we hope that every other negotiation is just like that. Unfortunately, negotiations don’t get hot until we get closer to that magic time before going out of network.”

Ms. Millerick echoed those sentiments. “Anytime that a hospital system and Aetna can reach an agreement on terms that work for both sides, that’s the goal, because you never want to have disruption for members,” she said. “So, we’re pleased and look forward to signing the final agreement.”

Will Hussey, a sales executive at Maran Corporate Risk Associates in Southampton Village, said he was pleased to hear the news that a deal had been reached.

“If they did terminate the contract, it would have been a pretty serious issue, possibly resulting in us having to move over 100 to 150 individuals and families to another health insurance carrier,” Mr. Hussey said.

Last year, Empire BlueCross BlueShield went out of network with the alliance during prolonged negotiations, which were finally settled last spring. Empire is the largest insurer on the South Fork, providing coverage to thousands of people.