Medicaid patients in Columbus may soon have one hospital choice

Medicaid patients in Franklin County may soon have just one choice of a hospital system after OhioHealth and Mount Carmel hospital systems announced plans to end contracts with Medicaid managed-care plan CareSource  (Source: “Medicaid patients may be down to one hospital system,” Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 6, 2008).

If the contract dispute is not resolved, Ohio State Medical Center would be the only hospital system in Franklin County that would still accept Medicaid patients.

CareSource announced last month that it would end an agreement with OhioHealth after failing to reach a new contract agreement. Mout Carmel then announced that it would exercise a stipulation in its contract that if OhioHealth stopped accepted Medicaid patients, it could do the same.