OGDEN — Fifteen Ogden doctors who jumped IHC's ship in a fee dispute have asked to be let back aboard.
The doctors' resignation in May has left Intermountain Health Care with only a handful of orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons north of Kaysville.
"In a good faith effort to reach amicable agreement, the members of (Ogden Orthopedic and Neurosurgical Specialists) each respectively agree to immediately return to the various IHC panels on which each member was previously impaneled," Dr. Blake Welling, an Ogden neurosurgeon and president of the group, said in a letter to IHC.
"Each member of the group is prepared to negotiate with IHC individually, either directly or through a designated 'third-party messenger,"' the letter stated.
Jerry Edgington, IHC Health Plans vice president in Salt Lake, received the letter Tuesday and said it was, "a win-win-win situation, good for our patients and for these doctors and definitely for IHC Health Plans.
"This is a great thing and we look forward to receiving their applications," he said.
But, he said the doctor's return will not involve any negotiations regarding fees.
Fee increases of 4 percent are already set, effective Jan. 1, for all of IHC's orthopedic surgeons and neurosurgeons, Edgington said.
"There are no separate negotiations for fees," he said. "We want to treat all physicians fairly and consistently. Our fee schedule is our fee schedule. . . . The fees are set and will not be any different for this group than anyone else."
Welling said, "We're still expecting to negotiate fees, and a reasonable request would be right down the middle" between the 4 percent IHC offered in July and the 38 percent the doctors set as a negotiation starting point before they resigned.
He was distressed at the tone of Edgington's position.
"Managed health care is supposed to be a partnership between doctors, patients and insurance providers," Welling said. "It ceases to be a partnership when the insurers have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude.
"As a result, doctors will move to an area where they don't have so much grief to deal with," he said.
"I'm just going to wait to get a written or verbal response from IHC. The ball is in their court. We gave them a volley here," he said.