BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – Northern Light Health shared a letter Friday sent to Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield’s leadership team detailing their list of concerns and issues they say they have experienced since negotiations began.

They say Anthem’s decision to withhold interim payments for services provided and a prior authorization process was leading to unnecessary challenges for patient care delivery at Northern Light Health.

“It is unfortunate that Anthem has decided not to focus its efforts on engaging in productive discussions to negotiate an agreeable deal that would benefit our patients by ensuring continued payment for the services Northern Light Health provides,” said James Rohrbaugh, CPA, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Northern Light Health. “To continue delivering this high level of service, we rely on fair and sustainable partnerships with insurers like Anthem. We need Anthem to come alongside us through a contract that reflects our region’s unique healthcare needs and economic environment.”

WABI spoke with the president of Anthem, Denise McDonough, Friday afternoon ahead of this announcement.

She said she would like Northern Light to be reasonable in the amount of the increase that they ask Anthem and their members for.

“Frankly, 30% is unreasonable. We understand the strains systems are under. We understand they believe they are fundamentally underpaid by government payers, and we believe we’ve done our part to help ensure they are fairly paid, but we cannot be their sole solution. They have some financial issues. We don’t believe we are the entity to solve all of those. We believe we’ll do our part and have done our part,” McDonough added.

Effective October 1st, Northern Light Health will be out of network with Anthem for physicians and some ancillary services.

Starting January 1st, Northern Light Health system, including hospitals, clinics, and physicians, will be out of network with all Anthem Medicare Advantage plans.

Anthem released the following statement following Friday’s news: “We at Anthem are disappointed to learn that Northern Light Health is indicating they will discontinue negotiations – with several weeks and months to go before their contracts with Anthem are supposed to terminate. We remain committed to working with Northern Light to reach a new contract in the weeks ahead. It’s the right thing to do for our members who are Northern Light patients. So, we intend to keep the lines of communication open.

As we have shared previously, we also remain committed to doing everything we can to keep healthcare as affordable as possible across Maine. Agreeing to the approximately 30 percent price increase (over three years) that Northern Light has demanded is not in the best interest of our members. They would end up having to pay more than $200 million more in health care costs over the life of the proposed three-year contract. Also as we have shared, it’s important to us to compensate Northern Light fairly – based, in part, on important healthcare quality measures. Northern Light has asked that we drop all quality-related compensation from our next contract, which concerns us.

Again, we are committed to continuing negotiations with Northern Light Health, and hope that they will agree to keep talking. We both owe it to the Mainers we serve.”

If Northern Light Health patients have questions, they can visit northernlighthealth.org/anthem for more information and details on alternative insurance plans that Northern Light Health accepts.

For any other questions, patients can email AnthemQuestions@NorthernLight.org or call Northern Light Health’s dedicated community information line at 1-888-616-0039.

An Update on our Negotiations with Anthem: For several months, Northern Light Health has made every effort to work… Posted by Northern Light Health on Friday, August 15, 2025

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