Council 31 is aware that Unicare is telling HMO members that they have to use non-Rush Hospital doctors because of a failure to reach a service agreement with Rush Hospital. For your information, Unicare and Rush have a February 15th deadline for reaching an agreement, so this may still occur. If this does not occur, past practice is to allow Unicare HMO members to migrate to other HMOs or PPOs. Stay tuned for more information.
February 19th, 2008
What happend with this anything new?
February 20th, 2008
“rami”-Reportedly, members received a letter from Unicare outlining the situation and providing some instruction, including deadlines, on migrating to another plan. Additional information is not currently available to the local but if members have inquired directly with Department of Risk Managment (312) 603- 6422 on the results of talks between Rush and Unicare, feel free to update your brothers and sisters on this blog.
February 21st, 2008
An open enrollment letter was sent around February 1st allowing a switch by
February 15th to either Blue Cross/Blue Shield Illinois HMO or PPO. I called Rush Health Associates on February 20th to see if the contract between Unicare and Rush had terminated and was told yes it was terminated on the 15th. The new insurance goes into effect March 1st if you switched by
the deadline of Feb. 15th.