University Affiliates IPA Closes Its Doors
University Affiliates Medical Group IPA of Alhambra, which had 2,400 doctors treating 105,000 patients in Southern California, became the 11th California medical group to fold this year when it shut down late Wednesday.
University Affiliates was the nation’s first fully accredited independent physicians association, originally established and operated by the University of Southern California in 1995. IPAs are physician-directed networks in which participating doctors enjoy the benefits of a larger organization while controlling their own practices. Administration was shifted from USC to the IPA board in 1998, but its final years were marked by financial struggle.
On Thursday, some University Affiliates doctors said they had patients who were being turned down for care.
“This is really bad--I have patients that need X-rays but they are being told that University Affiliates patients aren’t being served anymore,” said Los Angeles area family doctor Herbert Rubin, who treated about 500 patients through the IPA.
Rubin added that some of his patients have been shifted to another medical group he is affiliated with, but he doesn’t know how many will have to scramble to find other doctors.
“My patients are afraid. They’re concerned and I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t know where these people are going to go,” he said.
A spokesperson for the IPA said no patients would lose their medical coverage.
One large insurer, Blue Cross, was able to keep about half its 14,000 members who used University Affiliates with their doctors, but the other half have been assigned new doctors.
In a letter to patients, Dr. Sam J.W. Romeo, University Affiliates’ president and chief executive, wrote: “The failure of University Affiliates provides further evidence of the power and profits-above-all orientation of the HMO industry in California,” adding that insurers refused to negotiate higher payments for his group even after an independent audit told him that the payments were too low for his group to survive.
The health plans said Romeo’s IPA was poorly managed.
