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Hospital, Insurance Company Extend Deadline For Deal

CENTRAL FLORIDA — Almost a half-million Central Floridians are caught in the middle of a money fight between Florida's largest hospital chain and one of the area's biggest health insurance providers. While they fight, patients are scrambling to find new doctors.

Time is running out, but late Friday afternoon customers got some good news. Florida Hospital and United Healthcare extended their 11:59 Saturday night deadline 30 days; they now have until September 14 to make a deal.

This is affecting 488,000 people in Central Florida. That's 14-percent of our entire population.

Tracey Woehler's leg injury is healed and she's relieved it won't require her to go to Florida Hospital anytime soon.

"I'm upset at Florida Hospital, because they're making us scramble and frantically look for other providers," she said.

Woehler's angry because her husband does need to see Florida Hospital providers for radiation treatments, but they're insured by United Healthcare so they may be out of luck if a deal isn't made soon.

"Now we're scrambling trying to find out, in the middle of his treatment, what to do," she said.

If a contract agreement isn't reached between the hospital and United, a half-million United customers in Central Florida have a choice: find a new doctor or pay out of network to stay with a Florida Hospital physician, something most patients can't afford.

"We are prepared to send them to Orlando Regional or another healthcare center to handle their care," explained Page Heyward with Jewett Orthopedic.

At Jewett, they see 600 patients a day at seven centers in Central Florida. They've stopped sending their United patients to Florida Hospital and they won't until there's a resolution.

"We would be setting up that patient for the possibility of out-of-network charges, which is very expensive," Heyward said.

It all comes down to money. A United Healthcare spokeswoman told WFTV, under Florida Hospital's current proposal, the cost of services will rise every year.

Take MRIs, for example. The spokeswoman told WFTV patients who need one and have not met their deductible could be paying $700 more for the scan next year. She says, by 2014, the cost of all services could be 63 percent higher.

United Healthcare has opened a special telephone hotline for customers currently going to Florida Hospital for services. Call 1-800-797-9978, extension 34016.

Florida Hospital would not comment on the specifics of the negotiations.