Memorial Hospital is located at 2525 de Sales Avenue in Chattanooga.UnitedHealthcare has dropped Memorial Health Care System from its network of hospitals, forcing those insured by UnitedHealthcare and United Medicare Advantage programs to pay higher co-pays and deductibles if they use Memorial for nonemergency care.
Memorial officials said UnitedHealthcare wanted to cut payments to the Chattanooga hospital after the insurer's previous contract with Memorial expired Wednesday. No talks are scheduled to consider putting Memorial back in UnitedHealthcare's network.
Memorial Vice President Lisa McCluskey urged patients wanting to use Memorial to switch to health insurance plans that include Memorial in their networks.
Memorial remains in the networks offered by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Humana and Healthspring Advantage programs.