Blue Cross responds to Tenet charges

For the past several months, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia (BCBSGa) negotiated in good faith with Tenet Health System in order to keep its facilities among the hospitals in BCBSGa’s network, and available to our valued members.Tenet Health System is comprised of several healthcare providers including five (5) hospitals: Atlanta Medical Center, North Fulton Hospital, South Fulton Medical Center, Spalding Regional Medical Center and Sylvan Grove Hospital. BCBSGa values the care Tenet Health System provided to our members and we made considerable effort to keep them in our network.Our primary goal during contract negotiations is to ensure we are compensating providers fairly, while providing our members the best access at an affordable price. We are committed to protecting our members from exceedingly high medical costs and cannot justify Tenet’s rate requests given the impact this would have on increasing member’s health insurance premiums and coinsurance amounts.In that Tenet Health System has terminated its contract, effective 7/1/2010, BCBSGa has ensured that services rendered by Tenet providers are available from other in-network area providers.This termination does not impact any other of the over 185 hospitals that make up the extensive BCBSGa networks throughout Georgiacheryl.monkhouse@bcbsga.com | Corporate Communications | Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia | Office: 404-842-8516 | Mobile: 404- 210-1362 | cheryl.monkhouse@wellpoint.com