“Our background in emergency medicine, as physicians and nurses, led us to become an early adopter of the freestanding ER model. We opened our emergency room with the goal of bringing a faster, more efficient ER system to people where they live.
We knew that being an in-network provider was important to our future patients, giving them confidence to access ER care from a provider they could trust. Because freestanding ERs were so new, it was also important to establish contracts with insurers to legitimize our industry and ensure we were on the same playing field as other emergency care providers.
However, the insurance carriers have made this process extremely difficult. Some refused to offer contracts altogether. In other instances, we were told that health plans was not accepting any new providers within their networks, which is discouraging given the fact that Texas has some of the most narrow networks in the country, according to a Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics study. “
Read Rhonda’s full article published by TribTalk here: full article