Excela Health trying to steer clear of battle between UPMC, Highmark

Remaining neutral could prove difficult

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Excela Health is a three-hospital system based in Greensburg that tries hard to meet the medical needs of people living in rural Westmoreland County. And Excela CEO Bob Rogalski wants to keep it that way.

Mr. Rogalski said Tuesday that Excela would continue steering clear of the battle between rival health care titans Highmark and UPMC 35 miles away in Pittsburgh by providing high quality, low cost medical care to county residents, despite the risk of being drawn into the fray.

Highmark and UPMC both sell health insurance in addition to operating hospitals and clinics, leaving Pittsburgh-area patients smarting in recent years as soured relations between the big providers forced patients to switch doctors, depending on their insurance coverage.

“We don’t want to put Westmoreland County through what Pittsburgh went through,” Mr. Rogalski said. “We want to accept all insurers.”

Mr. Rogalski spoke at an open house for the system’s sleek glassand-stone, 115,000-square-foot outpatient center, called Excela Square at Latrobe and located off Route 30 near the Arnold Palmer Regional Airportin Unity Township.

The $40 million center — five years in the planning — is modeled after Excela Square Norwin, which opened in 2011 in North Huntingdon.

Excela Square at Latrobe, located about three miles from Excela Latrobe Hospital, consolidates fragmented delivery of medical care by putting many offices under one roof, Mr. Rogalski said. In addition to doctor’s offices, the three-story center offers lab, gynecology, medical imaging and other services.

“Everything is done to improve quality and control costs,” he said.

Staying neutral in the Highmark-UPMC tiff is going to get tougher. Excela doctors participate in quality care initiatives by Highmark and UPMC Health Plan, which each pay bonuses for meeting certain care metrics, Highmark is the biggest insurer in Westmoreland County and Excela’s employees are insured through Highmark, so Excela’s tiesto each organization run deep.

But three weeks ago,