Charting this week's hospital confusions

Executives at the Mease hospitals in Countryside and Dunedin want to make it clear that their relationship with Morton Plant Hospital is close, but not that close.

The two Mease hospitals in north Pinellas County purchase back-office services, like human resource and information technology assistance, from Morton Plant. But the Mease hospitals are not part of BayCare, the regional hospital network that includes Morton Plant.

The distinction is especially important now. BayCare is deadlocked in contract talks with BlueCross BlueShield of Florida. As a result, members of the Blues' commercial HMO, PPO and traditional policies either can't use or have to pay more for service at BayCare's seven hospitals.

In addition to Morton Plant in Clearwater, BayCare's network includes North Bay Hospital in New Port Richey, St. Anthony's in St. Petersburg, South Florida Baptist in Plant City and St. Joseph's, St. Joseph's Women's and Tampa Children's in Tampa.

"Our admissions people are handling calls from people who are confused about this," said Matt Novak, a spokesman for Mease hospitals who isn't surprised by the confusion. His own employee badge identifies him as being part of Morton Plant Mease Health Care.

Mease hospitals' complex relationship with Morton Plant stems from a 1994 agreement with the Justice Department. To prevent the hospital systems from having unfair market dominance in north Pinellas County, they agreed to separate marketing, public relations, pricing, strategic planning and managed care negotiations.

That means, Novak said, that Mease hospitals are still part of the BlueCross network, unaffected by the fracas with BayCare. "And our contract runs through September '03," he said with a hint of relief.

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