Baptist Memorial Physican Update

TO: All University Employees

FROM: Clay Jones, Director of Human Resources

IMPORTANT: Please ensure employees in your area without computer access receive this email. We ask that you make copies and ensure each employee gets a copy. Thanks.

Last Thursday, David Rock (Chair of Faculty Senate) and I met with Mr. Jim VanderSteeg (Administrator/CEO of Oxford Baptist hospital) to discuss problems with the Baptist Emergency Room physicians not being in the state AHS network, the Radiology group, and various communication issues between the Hospital and Oxford based state employees.

Mr. VanderSteeg was very cooperative and has pledged to work with us to hopefully avoid problems in the future. As was mentioned in an earlier email, employees who have received a bill from an Emergency Room visit that was not reduced to the network rate can contact Ms. Diane Kemp for
help with their bills. Employees should look at bills back to August 1, 2002 to see if there were any over charges. Bills will be reduced to the network prices. If you have already paid for the higher bill, a refund will be in order. The phone number to reach Ms. Kemp is 1-888-950-1350.

Effective August 1, 2003 a new group will be taking over the Emergency Room. This group is contractually obligated to participate in the AHS network. Although all of the paperwork is not finalized, I have verified with AHS that the contract process in underway and there should not be
any major problems. Mr. VanderSteeg also indicated he will stay on top of this issue to ensure the contracts are in place with this new group.

Many of you also know that other specialty groups have not been in the AHS networks at various times. The Radiology group was not in the network earlier this year but have now joined as of July 15, 2003. Baptist is also working with AHS and the Radiology group to see if they can make this
retroactive back to January 1, 2003. Baptist will notify me if this takes place and we will notify campus at that time. The Pathology group and Anesthesia group were in as of January 1, 2003.

We will pass along any further updates as they become available.

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