It's unclear what criteria they are using to keep or dismiss physicians—they're keeping the criteria to themselves," the interventional cardiologist said to heartwire ."We work very hard as physicians to take care of a lot of uninsured people, and for them to start hitting us hard on people who have some insurance, it's just unfair."
According to one estimate, about 95 Rhode Island physicians have been dropped from UHC's Medicare Advantage offerings, the Medicare "Part C" coverage option administered by insurance companies[1]. The company sells such plans nationally through AARP, which calls them AARP MedicareComplete.
UHC tried to assure Saber that other carriers would pick up his patients with their Medicare Advantage coverage or they would switch to other physicians still on their panel. "We have hundreds of [those] patients. How do they know they will be easily absorbed by other physicians they decided to keep?" And, he wonders, "What's to stop other insurance companies from doing this?