[A] major health insurer in Vermont is backing a proposal from independent doctors to build a freestanding surgical center in Colchester.
MVP Health Care, which has more than 20,000 customers in Vermont, wrote a letter of support to the Green Mountain Care Board, the regulatory body that has been considering the project for more than a year and a half.
George Thomson, the network management vice president for MVP, wrote the letter Jan. 10. The board said it received the letter Monday.
The facility MVP is supporting would be called the Green Mountain Surgical Center. It would offer basic surgeries, such as knee repairs and hysterectomies, and other procedures such as colonoscopies and treatment for spinal pain.
The Green Mountain Care Board has allowed doctors who are investing in the project to remain anonymous to protect them from potential retaliation by hospitals. But after more than a year and a half of legal proceedings, there has not been a hearing on whether the surgical center should be built.
“It is MVP’s experience in New York that independent free-standing (ambulatory surgical centers) can not only be more cost-effective, but can provide patient convenience and higher patient satisfaction,” the MVP letter says.
“MVP would look to contract with a licensed and certified (ambulatory surgical center) in our network if they could meet our stringent quality and reimbursement standards,” it continues.
The insurer says ambulatory surgical centers and other non-hospital-based services “align strategically within value-based care programs to transform the health care paradigm to the benefit of Vermont citizens.”
“As MVP continues to support the Green Mountain Care Board’s initiatives and transformative health care model, MVP believes that the establishment of this facility embodies the value, cost, and quality we strive to achieve in the state of Vermont,” the letter says.
Dozens of local businesses, including Seventh Generation, Champlain Cable, the Boys and Girls Club, and Lake Champlain Chocolates have sent similar letters in support of the project.
Amy Cooper, the executive director of HealthFirst, an organization for providers at physician-owned practices, is one of two named investors in the project. She said the investors are “encouraged to receive this letter of support” because MVP is “one of the major commercial health insurers in the state.”
Cooper added: “It reiterates what has already been said in support by employer groups and consumers that we talk to, and we’re hopeful that the Green Mountain Care Board listens to the endorsements of all these different groups that have supported our application.”
