Lakewood Pediatrics

Manatee County Blue Cross / Blue Shield customers can not have their insurance accepted at Manatee Memorial Hospital and Lakewood Ranch Medical Center. The contract between the hospitals and the insurance company expires at the end of the month.

It's a scary situation for the 23,000 people in Manatee County that have this insurance. Negotiations are still ongoing. Blue Cross / Blue Shield and hospitals have spoken since April without success, and the Jan. 1 deadline is fast approaching.

Manatee Memorial Hospital and Lakewood Ranch Medical Center to provide services that you can not find anywhere else in Manatee County. "We are the only hospital that provides acute care behavior, which provides pediatric services, offering service, the OB, which offers Neo-Natal ICU. We are the only hospital that has emergency services we have, "said Moody Chisholm, CEO of Manatee health systems.

But if an agreement is reached, people with Blue Cross insurance / Blue Shield will go to another hospital after the beginning of the year. "Every patient we will support OPP. We will evaluate HMO patients. If it's an emergency situation, we will take care of him here. If not, we will transfer them to an appropriate facility," said Chisholm.

Chisholm said the sticking point is the hospital asked Blue Cross / Blue Shield for a slight increase in taxes. "We're not a greedy hospital. We demand to increase average. We need to be able to maintain services in this community we've been known to offer."

But Blue Cross / Blue Shield Vice President Dr. Barry Schwartz made the statement: "We must balance the value provided by the hospital and the absolute necessity of providing affordable health coverage to our members."

Chisholm says the increase they claim is less than 10%.

But Blue Cross says: "The demands of Manatee hospitals and health systems are incompatible with the network arrangements of comparable hospitals in the state."

Chisholm says it costs at Manatee Memorial soared with the bad economy. They see a sharp increase in the number of indigent, Medicaid and charity event, and operating costs of medicines and equipment are also increasing. He hoped that the partnership with Blue Cross / Blue Shield can continue.

Blue Cross / Blue Shield has a contract yet for patients at Blake Medical Center in West Bradenton, and Doctor's Hospital in Sarasota.