UF Health: Committed to Our Patients and Our Communities

Our physicians, nurses, and all the members of your team at UF Health care deeply about you, your family, your friends, and the communities we serve. We value all our patients and believe clear and open communication is vital to our relationship with you and essential to our mission to serve you as you make informed decisions about your health and well-being.

Many families in our community depend on insurance to cover the majority of their health care needs. It is our aim to work with a wide range of insurance providers to ensure our patients have seamless access to the compassionate, leading-edge care delivered at UF Health. Recently, we have been negotiating new contracts in good faith with United Healthcare, one of the largest insurance companies in the nation.

United Healthcare Is No Longer Including UF Health In Network

Despite our best efforts to negotiate for fair and acceptable terms, as of Sept. 1, 2024United Healthcare is no longer including UF Health hospitals and physicians in Gainesville, Jacksonville, and St. Johns in its provider network for commercial and Medicaid Managed Care insurance plans.

UF Health and United Healthcare: What You Should Know

Ensuring uninterrupted, consistent care for our community is mission critical for UF Health, and we are dedicated to finding a resolution. As Florida’s flagship health system, our primary goal is to deliver care, not limit it. Settling this matter is our highest priority, and we deeply value the trust our patients place in us.

Ultimately, the real issue isn’t about money. It’s about sustaining our ability to provide outstanding, compassionate care to everyone. As Florida’s premier health system, we seek to help all those we serve — improving lives, adding locations and services, researching new medical discoveries, and training generations of health care providers.

Our patients are our priority. And the needs of our communities come before corporate stakeholders.

Yet while we continue to remain focused on fulfilling our mission of caring for patients and the communities we serve, we are faced with managing annual double-digit increases in labor, supply, and other expenses. Despite United Healthcare earning over $22 billion in profits last year, in negotiations they only agreed to offer UF Health hospitals increases in rates for commercial plans that are less than the rate of general inflation and far below our rising annual costs. Unfortunately, this is part of an ongoing trend: United has historically reimbursed UF Health considerably less than market rates, and those numbers have been declining for the past several years.

United Healthcare has not only failed to make a reasonable offer, they also haven’t honored their commitment to pay our physicians and hospitals the rates we previously agreed upon. And when United preauthorizes a treatment plan and the UF Health care team provides care, all too often United reverses course, unilaterally denying payment or taking other administrative action to avoid paying what was promised. As a result, the cost of care is being shifted to you — employers and patients — in the form of higher deductibles, coinsurance, and copays over time.

Over the past year, United Healthcare’s actions have resulted in:

  • Increased claim denials and payment delays, undermining care our doctors determine is medically necessary for our patients
  • Unnecessarily complex and lengthy prior authorization processes
  • Complicated billing and coding requirements
  • Increased paperwork and administrative burdens
  • Refusal to honor previously agreed upon rates, through implementing onerous policies and claims edits that reduce our reimbursement
  • Reduced reimbursement, significantly less than other health plans and lower than the already inadequate rates we receive, which haven’t kept pace with ongoing increased in labor, supply, and other expenses at a time of historic inflation
  • No annual increase to UF Health physicians in current contract negotiations, and an initial proposed 10% cut overall to UF Health

These issues distract our clinicians from focusing on what’s most important: treating patients.

We continue to work in good faith with United to return to being in-network participating providers. We are making every effort to minimize the disruption in care for our patients who rely on us for our clinical excellence. UF Health is committed to serving as a valuable resource for our communities. We understand that you may have questions. We will try our best to answer them. Contact UF Health at 1-855-834-7337 or 352-265-8585 or visit UFHealth.org/healthplans.

Some services such as behavioral health and transplants are not affected by this decision and remain covered services for UF Health patients with United Healthcare. Patients also may be able to continue certain types of care, such as pregnancy and cancer care. If you have specific questions about whether you qualify for continued coverage and care, if you will have a higher copayment for services, or for any other information necessary or appropriate for the delivery of your health care services, please contact the benefits representative for your health plan. Some numbers United Healthcare lists on its website include:

  • Commercial health plan customer service line: 1-866-801-4409
  • Medicaid managed care customer service line: 1-888-716-8787

Many health plans also list customer service numbers on member identification cards.

We greatly appreciate you, our patient, and are honored to compassionately provide for your health care needs.


Additional Notice:

Your health is of great importance to us. If you are under a course of treatment as of Aug. 31, 2024, and you are enrolled in a United health plan for which UF Health will no longer be a participating provider as of Sept. 1, 2024, you may have the right to continue receiving care or treatment from UF Health.

For example, behavioral health and transplant services are still covered; they are not part of this agreement. Other conditions such as pregnancy, cancer treatments, and dialysis may continue. Also, please know that regardless of whether a health plan has an agreement for services with UF Health, in the event of an emergency, patients can always access care in our emergency rooms, and, except in rare circumstances, emergency services and care provided by UF Health will be covered to the extent required by law. Except for certain instances regarding continuity of care, UF Health will be seeking payment of the maximum amounts permissible under law for emergency services and care rendered to patients enrolled in plans with which UF Health is no longer a participating provider or facility as of Sept. 1, 2024.

If you have specific questions regarding your health benefits, please contact your health plan. You also have the right to receive care from another hospital or provider, if you choose to do so. Health plans often list a telephone number on the health plan’s enrollee identification card so they may be contacted directly about your choices.