Aetna, Tenet sign new multi-year agreement to access quality health care services

Tenet Healthcare Corporation and Aetna announced today that they have signed a new multi-year agreement.

Under this agreement, which took effect January 1, 2011, members of Aetna commercial and Medicare Advantage health plans will be able to continue receiving covered health care services from Tenet facilities and physicians. The agreement includes all of Tenet's 49 hospitals as well as Tenet's 81 freestanding diagnostic imaging centers and ambulatory surgery centers nationwide. Tenet Physicians, Inc., which contracts for nearly 500 physicians employed by various Tenet subsidiaries, also is part of the agreement. The physicians represented by Tenet Physicians Inc. include traditional primary care specialties (family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology and pediatrics), as well as medical and surgical specialties.

"We value our long-standing relationship with Aetna and are very pleased with the new agreement. We continue to work closely together to provide Aetna members access to quality health care at lower costs through multiple types of innovative network benefit solutions," said Stephen L. Newman, M.D., Tenet's chief operating officer.

"Tenet's facilities and its affiliated doctors have been integral parts of Aetna's networks for many years. We're glad that our members will continue to access their quality health care services," said Carl King, head of Aetna National Networks and Contracting Services.