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November 22, 2013 at 07:22 AM
NEW YORK (AP) — New Yorkers buying a health plan on the state’s new insurance exchange should read the fine print if they’re interested in getting care at some of the city’s top hospitals.
Not all are participating in the new plans created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
As of this week, not one of the plans for sale on New York’s health benefit exchange would cover treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, one of the world’s largest and most respected cancer hospitals.
That could mean that the 615,000 individuals and 450,000 small business employees expected to eventually get their insurance through the exchange would have to go someplace else for treatment, or pay the bill out of their own pockets.
Other premier city hospitals are in the networks of just a few of the new plans.
NYU Langone Medical Center has signed agreements with four of the 19 insurers doing business on the exchange.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, which oversees the city’s biggest hospital system, has signed agreements with six insurers.
President Obama promised when PPACA was enacted that people who liked their doctors could keep them, but the reality of the law both in New York and around the country is that the new, lower-cost policies it is creating sometimes have smaller provider networks than Medicare, Medicaid, or the plans people typically get through their employers.
Those narrower networks are a result of insurers trying to control costs and hospitals being cautious about agreeing to take new, untested insurance products.
