CommonSpirit Health’s Tennessee and Georgia facilities (formerly CHI Memorial), went out of network with Cigna Healthcare on Feb. 1.
The network split affects individuals covered by Cigna’s commercial Open Access Plus PPO and its narrower-network Local Plus plan.
The affected CommonSpirit facilities include three hospitals: Memorial Hospital in Chattanooga, Memorial Hospital – Hixson (Tenn.) and Memorial Hospital – North Georgia (Ringgold). The Chattanooga Heart Institute and more than 650 physicians with health system’s medical group are also affected.
CommonSpirit also operates 65 care sites and two outpatient imaging centers in Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia.
“Our top priority is ensuring you continue to have uninterrupted, in-network access to all CommonSpirit doctors, hospitals, and services,” CommonSpirit wrote on its website. “We are advocating for a fair, market competitive agreement that supports quality patient care. Cigna has rejected all our proposals to date.”
“Despite already being one of the most expensive hospital systems in the region, CommonSpirit requested large price increases that would make health care unaffordable and rejected our offer to keep the current contract in place while we continued negotiating,” a Cigna spokesperson said. “If you’re a Cigna Healthcare customer who is currently receiving treatment at CommonSpirit Memorial Hospital, we will work with you to either continue or transition your care to another in-network provider.”
