Blue Cross, Los Robles sign pact
After month of silence, parties resume talks, iron out contract
By John Phane
T.O. Acorn Editor

Blue Cross of California and Los Robles Regional Medical Center have settled a month-long dispute with the signing of a two-year contract this week. Leslie Kelsay, assistant administrator of public affairs for San Jose Medical Center and a spokesperson for HCA, the parent company of Los Robles, said, "After no talks for about three weeks, we came back to the table, and after two days of intense negotiations were able to arrive at an acceptable contract with Blue Cross."

The former contract that provided service to an estimated 300,000 area Blue Cross customers expired Oct. 1. Kelsay said that Nashville-based HCA, which owns Los Robles and five other hospitals in California, initiated talks with Blue Cross in May to forestall a potential contract interruption. However, she said that HCA representatives felt at the time it expired that HCA and Blue Cross were still too far apart in negotiations.

"If it had been closer, we would have found some way to keep services going for our Blue Cross customers," Kelsay said. "But it was not."

Kelsay said negotiations between the two fell apart because the rates offered by Blue Cross were inadequate for the costs of operating HCA hospitals. She said that Blue Cross offered less than Medicare and substantially less than 17 other healthcare underwriters.

She said that because of expenses, HCA’s cost of doing business over the last three years has risen about 30 percent.

The spokeswoman declined to give contract specifics, but said, "It’s fair to say that the offer Blue Cross finally made came close enough to meeting our requirements for us to sign."

She also declined to say which side reopened negotiations. "It doesn’t matter who called first. What matter is that both parties came back to the table and we have now managed to restore services," Kelsay said.