HealthPartners dropping a UnitedHealthcare Medicare plan for 2025

Patients using UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage health insurance plan will no longer be able to use HealthPartners as an in-network provider starting in 2025.

HealthPartners says it has already sent a letter to its approximately 30,000 patients who use the plan to alert them to the change in the rationale for it.

HealthPartners says in the letter to patients that a key reason they decided to leave was delays and denials of payments for patients on the Medicare Advantage plan at a rate up to 10 times higher than that of other health insurers.

UnitedHealthcare says HealthPartners statements about claims denials are ‘simply not true.’

HealthPartners says they negotiated with UnitedHealthcare for a year to try to come to a resolution before HealthPartners ultimately decided to no longer participate in the specific healthcare plan.

UnitedHealthcare says HealthPartners provided a proposal earlier this year that UnitedHealthcare agreed to, but claims HealthPartners walked away after getting a contract to sign.

Patients currently on the healthcare plan will be covered in-network at HealthPartners, including their Park Nicollet clinics and three hospitals, through 2024.

UnitedHealthcare says they are committed to still finding a solution with HealthPartners to remain in-network for their Medicare Advantage plan customers. UnitedHealthcare provided this statement:

“We proposed a contract that provided solutions HealthPartners sought to continue participating in our Medicare Advantage network. Rather than using the remaining time on our contract to implement these solutions, HealthPartners rescinded its position and is now putting Medicare Advantage patients in the middle of our negotiation, unnecessarily creating stress and fear for them while spreading outlandish, false claims. Our goal is to utilize the remaining months on our contract to reach an agreement that ensures the people we serve have continued network access to HealthPartners. We hope HealthPartners shares our commitment to provide access to care for all Minnesota and Wisconsin residents.” 

Impacted HealthPartners patients can find more information from the healthcare provider HERE.