Date: October 1999
To: Whom it may concern,
We, the undersigned, are state employees or retired state employees who are deeply concerned by both the content and manner in which changes are being made to the State Employee Health Insurance Program to take effect January 1, 2000. All current choices for preferred provider networks are being eliminated with only 3 months notice and will be replaced with a single network which isn't even operational yet. All doctors and providers in the current networks have not even been given the option to participate yet. Several of us have contacted our current doctors in Memphis and learned these doctors have not yet received any forms giving them the option to participate in the new network. Some of us have also contacted doctors in north Mississippi and learned that they are as disturbed as we are concerning the new plan. Many, if not most, do not currently intend to participate in the network. For many of us, this will mean inadequate health care. Physicians who have treated us for years and have cared for us well will not be available in the new network. We will be forced to pay higher deductibles, a greater share in copayments, and the differences between customarily charged prices in this region and the amount AHS and state administrators unilaterally choose to declare eligible for health services. In many cases we may no longer be able to afford badly needed specialists and are faced with the very real prospect of inadequate health care, especially in North Mississippi. We are being forced to make decisions on the amount of money we will have to contribute to our medical spending accounts without adequate information on what our costs will be since we cannot determine who will or won't be in the network.
We want to know what your position on this issue is. We do not feel
we were adequately represented in these unilateral changes and we want
to have our choices of networks reinstated for FY 2000.
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Continuation page of petition protesting changes in State Employees
Health Insurance Plan
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