UnitedHealthcare committed to providing Cape area residents access to quality, affordable health care

Editor's note: The Southeast Missourian invited UnitedHealthcare and Saint Francis Healthcare to share their perspectives on current negotiations. Here is UnitedHealthcare's update.

At UnitedHealthcare, we have the privilege of serving more than 1 million Missouri residents who rely on us to provide them with access to health care that is not only high quality but also affordable. Negotiating with care providers to keep the cost of care affordable is central to our ability to meet the commitment we have made to our members as well as the employers that have chosen us as their insurer.

While we have worked hard to try to move things forward with Saint Francis, little progress has been made. Unfortunately, the hospital's statements to the media and other information it has shared publicly have been misleading or inaccurate. While we recognize that these sorts of negotiations can be contentious, we don't believe it's appropriate to share half-truths with the people of Cape Girardeau.

We also feel strongly that the customers and members we serve should not be dragged through the negotiations process, but Saint Francis seems intent on doing just that. So we gratefully accept the Southeast Missourian's invitation to address Saint Francis' misleading claims.

While Saint Francis has boasted about its efforts to rein its costs in over the past couple years, it's still the most expensive health system in Cape Girardeau, at nearly one-and-a-half times more expensive than the other hospitals in the area. It's also nearly two times more expensive than our network hospitals in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Its efforts to lower costs in recent years demonstrate that the hospital's leadership recognizes that its costs were far too high for too long. And while Saint Francis has taken steps in the right direction, more needs to be done to lower the cost of health care for the people of Cape Girardeau and the companies that do business here.

While Saint Francis is actively engaging with the media, they were not actively engaging in the negotiations process. Saint Francis has claimed that "United terminated the contract" while it was "willing to continue negotiations." In fact, Saint Francis ignored our attempts to negotiate for months. We sent the hospital a proposal last summer in an effort to begin the negotiations process. Despite repeated follow-up attempts, Saint Francis did not respond for more than three months, leaving us no choice but to issue a termination notice simply to bring them to the negotiation table. We made it clear from the beginning that our goal was to keep them in our network.

Instead of engaging in constructive dialogue with us, Saint Francis has chosen to focus its time and energy on planning press conferences and taking out expensive advertisements. By doing so, the hospital is unnecessarily putting our members in the middle of the negotiations. It's unfortunate and disappointing that this is how it's handling what should be a productive negotiations process focused on reaching a compromise and establishing a new agreement.

We appreciate how difficult network disruption can be. We don't pursue these sorts of challenging negotiations unless we believe it's in the best interests of our customers and members. We take seriously the impact that rising health care costs have on the people we serve, and at this time Saint Francis has not responded with a proposal that will have a meaningful impact on reducing its costs.

We remain open to continued discussions with Saint Francis and ask that the hospital join us in our commitment to providing the people of Cape Girardeau with access to health care that is not only high quality but also affordable.

We appreciate your support as we continue working to make health care more affordable for the people of Cape Girardeau.

Patrick Quinn is the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in Missouri.