3/30/2012

Pittsburgh, March 30, 2012 – Today UPMC provided Insurance Commissioner Michael Considine with formal notice that contracts permitting Highmark to include certain UPMC hospitals in its commercial network will expire on June 30, 2012, initiating a one-year run-off period that ends June 30, 2013.  UPMC notified Highmark of the expiration of these contracts nearly one year ago. The hospitals included in the notice are UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, UPMC Passavant, UPMC Bedford, UPMC St. Margaret, UPMC Horizon, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, UPMC Northwest and UPMC McKeesport.

The letter to Commissioner Considine cites Act 94, which requires 90 days’ advance notice to the Insurance Department when a contract between certain hospitals and insurers is going to be terminated. That statute then permits the Insurance Department to become involved in the termination to ensure “that the reasonable expectations of subscribers as to coverage [are] fulfilled if possible.”

“UPMC remains fully committed to its patients in Western Pennsylvania,” said W. Thomas McGough Jr., UPMC’s senior vice president and chief legal officer. “Our goal is to ensure that anyone who wants access to our world-class facilities and physicians has that opportunity, and that Highmark’s current subscribers have ample time to consider their alternatives when these contracts, and the associated run-off periods, expire. We welcome the involvement of the Insurance Department in that process.”