Letter | Mass General Brigham’s Divorce from Blue Cross Hurts Patients

If anyone had any doubt that the American medical care system is in shambles, it should be erased by the spat between two corporate actors – Mass General Brigham and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) – resulting in Mass General Brigham’s expulsion from the BCBSMA network of Primary Care Providers (PCP) effective October 1 of this year. This is a breach of the “contract” (aka the Plan) that Blue Cross made with HMO subscribers for the calendar year. 

Since my PCP will be out of network in October, the instructions in the letter from BCBSMA were that I would have to select a new PCP. It’s hard enough to find a doctor accepting new patients in the first place. Additionally, switching docs means the doctor loses knowledge of the patient, and that knowledge isn’t fully replaced by the doctor’s notes. 

Massachusetts General Hospital and the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital of Boston were both internationally renowned and on the cutting edge of medicine. Blue Cross Blue Shield was the gold standard of medical insurance. These brand names have been trashed. Little information is available to the public about the cause of the disruption. What is known is that it’s a matter of money. 

By default, the United States stands alone among prosperous nations in not providing universal medical care. Power over the patient is in the hands of disparate corporate entities, some for-profit, others supposedly not. Call it what it is: Corporate Medicine. America can do better!

Jon K. Rosenthal

Jon K. Rosenthal is a resident of Amherst