Anthem Blue Cross contract fight could see 22K Sloan Kettering cancer patients lose life-saving treatments

Thousands of Memorial Sloan Kettering cancer patients could lose access to life-saving treatments in 2025 because of an ongoing contract fight with insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield.MSK leadership said Wednesday it was “not confident” a deal would be reached between the two sides before their current contract expires on Jan.1, 2025 – which would push some patients out of network and force them to drop the treatments or face impossibly high medical costs.“I feel like once you have cancer … you live scan to scan,” said teacher and mother-of-four Carrie Regan, 41, who called the thought of losing care at MSK “crippling.”The Hudson Valley resident was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in August 2023 and has been cancer-free since March — but she still goes for monthly checkups and said she has been frustrated by the lack of answers from Anthem.“So on top of that anxiety now we have this level of anxiety that like what am I gonna do, who am I going to see,” Regan added.MSK and the insurer are at loggerheads over the rate of reimbursement Anthem would give the medical institution — with the hospital’s chief financial officer accusing Anthem of putting “profit ahead of patient care.”About 22,000 active patients could be affected by the potential impasse, according to MSK.

Overall, the hospital treated 71,233 patients in 2023.A New York law requires current MSK patients under Anthem to receive in-network care until March 1 of next year so there is still time for the two sides to work out a deal following the Jan.

1 deadline. “While we are working overtime to negotiate in good faith with Anthem to resolve this dispute for the patients who rely on us, Anthem does not appear interested in fair resolution,” hospital CFO Mike Harrington said in a scathing statement to The Post.Anthem painted a more optimistic tone in a statement to The Post, saying the company is “confident we will reach an agreement with Memorial Sloan Kettering (...