Regence says 8,000 patients can keep doctors

About 500 doctors who had been excised from a new Regence BlueShield insurance network will get to stay on at least another year, Boeing told its engineers union Thursday.

The decision was made after hundreds of members of the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) union complained, and the state medical association demanded an apology from Regence for insulting its members by saying the doctors were being excluded for not meeting quality standards.

"It's clear to us that we failed to communicate with our members and providers as well as we should have, for which we are deeply sorry," said Regence's chief medical officer, Dr. Jeffrey Robertson.

Dr. Peter Dunbar, president of the Washington State Medical Association, said Boeing's announcement came mere hours after the association decided to hire a law firm on the issue. The union staged a rally at Regence headquarters in downtown Seattle on Thursday afternoon.

Now, "we have an opportunity to work with the folks at Regence to get a plan that will work for the patients and for their physicians," Dunbar said.

Last month, Regence, one of the state's largest insurers, told about 8,000 patients that their doctors would not be included in the newly formed Select Network Plan. The plan was created for the current union contract between Boeing and SPEEA, which represents engineers, technical and professional workers.

Employees were angry that longtime health providers were deemed unworthy for the new "performance-based" network, forcing them to move to a more expensive plan or find new doctors.

Last week, the medical association publicly demanded a Regence apology for letters to patients saying doctors didn't meet "quality" standards. The association contends Regence's ratings are more about cost than quality, an assertion Regence denies.

Regence's controversial rating system attempts to measure doctor performance to identify those who spend too much compared to their peers or don't deliver widely accepted treatments. Regence said it used quality and efficiency standards to choose doctors for the Select Network, which costs Boeing less.

Boeing decided to delay activating the new network until July 1, 2007, because employees hadn't been informed well enough nor had enough time to make changes in coverage, Pam French, Boeing director of employee benefits, told workers in an e-mail Thursday.

"We believe this is the way to improve quality, efficiency and cost management of the health-care system," Villiers said. "These are big issues, not just for Boeing but for everybody."

Charles Bofferding, executive director of SPEEA, said that while the union supports "evidence-based medicine," doctors should help develop the rating criteria and be afforded a chance to improve before being dropped.

"This process wasn't encouraging anyone to get better, it was just telling them to get out," Bofferding said. "That doesn't work for us."

In the wake of the uproar, Regence officials pledged to update the grading system and give doctors a chance to improve their rankings, among other steps.

"We have already begun to carefully review what happened, why it happened and to take the steps necessary to prevent it from happening again," Robertson said.

Carol M. Ostrom: 206-464-2249 or costrom@seattletimes.com