Sunny Eappen, left, and Owen Foster. Photos by Glenn Russell/VTDiggerThe Green Mountain Care Board unanimously approved a settlement with the University of Vermont Health Network Friday, paving the way for a deal in which the hospital network will pay millions to primary care practices and the state ’s largest private insurer, and will fund an outside observer to oversee the hospitals’ spending and operations.Under the terms of the deal, which UVM Health Network trustees approved last week, the hospital chain will pay $11 million to outside primary care practices in the 2026 fiscal year and $12 million to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, the state’s largest private insurer, which is on rocky financial ground.The deal will also create a working group made up of representatives from the care board and the hospital network and an independent “liaison.” That group will hire consultants — funded by up to $15 million from the health network — to examine the network’s finances and operations. The hospital network also agreed to tie potential future bonuses for senior executives to a set of specific criteria.  In return, the care board, a powerful health care regulator, will not pursue further action related to UVM Medical Center exceeding its budget cap in its fiscal year 2024. And the board will relax its enforcement of another instance, in the 2023 fiscal year, in which the Burlington hospital exceeded its budget cap by about $80 million. Instead of reducing its patient revenue by $40 million in its 2026 fiscal year, the hospital will spread that reduction over the 2026 and 2027 fiscal years. Vermont’s health care system needs action “in the very, very near term future if we’re going to avoid really significant (insurance) rate increases,” Green Mountain Care Board Chair Owen Foster said at a Friday morning board meeting. The settlement, he said, is one piece of the puzzle.  The UVM Health Network echoed concerns about the expense of care: “Health care costs too much, and as a leading provider of health care in our region, we have a responsibility to do whatever we can to make a meaningful difference,” UVM Health Network spokesperson Annie Mackin said in a statement. “This plan addresses the reality that the status quo isn’t working and represents our long-term commitment to reform and sustainability.”Over the past week, the deal has drawn criticism from advocates and members of the public, some of whom complained that it was negotiated outside the public eye and does not do enough to reduce costs for Vermonters. “I believe the Board could have, and should have, extracted more concessions from UVMMC,” Patrick Flood, a former commissioner of Vermont’s Departments of Mental Health and Aging and Independent Living, said in a written comment submitted to the board. “Yes, getting UVM to agree to pay $11 million to non-hospital primary care is a good step. But it should have been twice that amount or more.”In another written comment to the board, Deb Snell, the president of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, a health care union, wrote, “While I truly appreciate the effort to hold UVMMC and the Network accountable for their actions, I do not feel this proposal goes far enough, and the settlement money being offered is frankly a drop in the bucket for the Network.”But care board members said Friday that the agreement — while perhaps not perfect — was an important step forward, one that will impose a sort of truce between the board and the hospital network. “I’ve concluded that litigation — continued litigation — or further negotiation is both futile and a distraction from the work that must be done going forward,” Thom Walsh, a care board member, said at the meeting. “For this reason, I think this agreement is the most concrete thing we can do today to start moving forward, and I’m in favor of it.”Read the story on VTDigger here: State health care regulator approves settlement with UVM Health Network. ...read more read less