The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center has filed a false advertising lawsuit against Highmark over claims made in the insurer's recent ad campaign, according to a report in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The suit revolves around claims made in the Highmark ads that UPMC will deny access to some patients after 2014, when a deal extending in-network access to UPMC facilities for Highmark customers is set to expire, according to the report.
UPMC officials say the ads are untrue because Highmark customers will still have out-of-network access to UPMC facilities, and call the ads attempts to steer patients away from UPMC facilities toward Allegheny Health Network, owned by Highmark, according to the report.
The Highmark ads aired in the middle of an escalating ad war between the two organizations. "The irony is that UPMC runs misleading ads and then takes legal action against Highmark Health Services to try to stop it from informing the public about the threat to the community's healthcare choice. We plan to aggressively defend UPMC's allegations about our ads," said a Highmark spokesman in the report.
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