Northwest Healthcare and UnitedHealthcare announced Saturday that they have reached a new three-year-agreement.
This will keep all Northwest Healthcare facilities, urgent care locations and physicians in UnitedHealthcare's network. The new agreement is effective immediately.
The agreement is retroactive to May 1, 2017. so patients who received care at any Northwest facility during this out-of-network-period will be processed as in-network.
Thank you to our patients for their support as we reached an agreement to preserve their access to Northwest Healthcare. We value our relationship with UnitedHealthcare and are grateful for their efforts to reach an agreement, said Kevin Stockton, Market CEO of Northwest Healthcare. Our objective with this agreement was to ensure patients can access healthcare services when and where they need them. We also worked to help keep their out-of-pocket costs down. That’s important to both Northwest Healthcare and UnitedHealthcare, and we believe it’s important to our patients. This agreement achieved those objectives. Our community is the real beneficiary because the agreement ensures they continue to have the freedom to choose their provider without any further disruption.
I want to thank all of our plan members and customers in Tucson for their patience throughout this process. We appreciate the commitment Northwest Healthcare has made to value-based health care and look forward to working with them to ensure our members receive high quality care as a result of this agreement, said Dave Allazetta, CEO, UnitedHealthcare of Arizona. We understand that these last few weeks have been difficult for people in northwest Tucson who rely on the Northwest system for their medical needs. We are honored to continue supporting these members and the more than two million people across Arizona who depend on us for access to quality, costeffective health care.
