When I went in for a teeth cleaning session at my dentist's office this week, I told the front desk person that I had different insurance now, having signed up with Providence MedAdvantage at the end of 2024 because I didn't want to run the risk of my Regence MedAdvantage plan being severely handicapped by Regence and Salem Health failing to renew their contract -- which seemed likely at the time.

I was told that many of their dental patients have done the same thing: dumped Regence. A few days ago the wisdom of that move became clear when Salem Health issued a news release whose title says it all: "Update: Negotiations fail, Salem Health can no longer accept Regence insurance." Excerpt:
For over a year, Salem Health Hospitals and Clinics has worked tirelessly to reach agreement on a fair and equitable contract with Regence BlueCross BlueShield that covers the cost of providing health care in the mid-valley. Despite daily negotiations and numerous accommodations by Salem Health, Regence has been unwilling to offer any meaningful compromise, forcing Salem Health to stop accepting BlueCross BlueShield insurance effective Feb. 24, 2025.
“It is Salem Health’s obligation and privilege to provide high quality of care for our community,” said Cheryl Wolfe, Salem Health president and CEO. “Unfortunately, that means making difficult decisions to ensure we can provide that level of care now and for the next generation. We understand this decision will be difficult for our patients who are BlueCross BlueShield members. We have worked so hard to find an alternative path with Regence and are so deeply frustrated and heartbroken that this is where we are.”
Since the contract between the two parties expired Jan. 1, Salem Health has seen a pattern of Regence denying coverage and passing the full cost of care to their members. This leaves patients with overwhelming medical bills, even as these members continue to pay their premiums to Regence.
Of course, Regence has a different perspective on this corporate pissing match, issuing its own news release, "Salem Health's leadership has walked away from negotiations." Excerpt:
We have been working for months to find a reasonable path to bring Salem Health’s providers and facilities back into our network. But today their leaders said they are not interested in continuing conversations if we won’t give them a 40% increase.
Salem chose to terminate our contract at the start of this year and appears uninterested in serving Regence members.
We’ve been transparent that our aim is to protect our members and customers from unsustainable increases in the cost of care. We hear regularly from people who are frustrated about the very real impact health care affordability has on their lives. Those frustrations extend to our regulators, who have asked us to limit care to 3.4% growth annually.
Salem Health leaders have continued to insist on reimbursement rates that far exceed that amount. We’ve regularly given them increases through the years, and we have offered them an increase in our current conversations as well. However, they continue to demand more, and we cannot do that to our members and customers, knowing any increases in the price of care will cost them more.
We understand that Salem Health’s position is that they are ready to stay out of network for a long time, asserting that they do not need Regence for their continued business and plan to prioritize patients insured by others. They’ve indicated that they can easily replace our members with other patients.
This is a most unfortunate position that prioritizes their profits and not their patients and turns a blind eye to the disruption they have caused in the community. We want to provide access to our members, but we will not ask them to shoulder the burden of lining the provider’s pockets.
I don't know who to believe. My leaning, I guess, is a bit toward Salem Health. After all, Salem Health says that they have contracts with 15 other insurance carriers, though it's unclear how many of those contracts were newly negotiated.
When I turned 65, I signed up with Regence MedAdvantage. So for over ten years I've been mostly satisfied with Regence. In 2024 I paid $72 a month for coverage, in addition to what is deducted for Medicare from my Social Security payment. Now I'm paying Providence MedAdvantage $82 a month for a roughly similar plan.
What disturbs me is the disruption caused to people in the Salem area who have Regence health insurance and either weren't able to switch to a different insurance company, or didn't want to switch, perhaps trusting that Regence and Salem Health would work out a deal.
The number of people potentially affected is open to debate. Salem Health's news release says more than 30,000:
Salem Health requested continuity of care for all Regence members after January while the two parties negotiated toward a fair contract. Regence largely denied this request. Out of more than 30,000 local BlueCross BlueShield members, Regence has granted continuity of care for less than 400, leaving the others with almost no local access to care and large medical bills. To avoid further crippling medical debt for patients, Salem Health has made the difficult decision to stop accepting BlueCross BlueShield insurance.
Regence's press release says 30,000 is too high.
Salem Health says Regence has 30,000 affected members – not true: this number includes members from other Blue plans across the country as well as thousands of people who were no longer eligible with any Blues plan.
Regardless, it's a sad commentary on our nation's dysfunctional health care system that two giant corporations can hold hostage the physical and mental health needs of many thousands of people in our area.
I'm not expecting that the next four years of the Trump administration will see any improvement in this regard, since at the best our health care system will be fortunate to maintain the crappy status quo: way more expensive than in other comparable countries, while we have poorer health outcomes.
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