New addition expands member access in North Georgia

Tenet Healthcare Corporation and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia announced the agreement today of a new contract adding North Fulton Regional Hospital to the Blue Cross Blue Shield provider network.  Effective July 1, 2002, North Fulton Regional Hospital is a Participating Provider for the Blue Cross Blue Shield/ BlueChoice HMO, POS, PPO, and Platinum health plans.

Over the past six months, North Fulton Regional Hospital has signed new agreements with First Health, Cigna, Private Healthcare Systems (PHCS), United Healthcare, Coventry Health Care and Southcare PPO. With the addition of Blue Cross Blue Shield, North Fulton Regional Hospital is now participating in a majority of the major healthcare plans in north metro Atlanta and North Georgia.  

North Fulton Regional Hospital offers a variety of services, which include Women's Health, Inpatient and Outpatient Rehabilitation Services, Cardiology, Emergency/Level II Adult Trauma Center, and Pain Control Center.

Tenet Healthcare owns and operates five hospitals in the metro Atlanta area, including Atlanta Medical Center, North Fulton Regional Hospital, South Fulton Medical Center, Spalding Regional Hospital and Sylvan Grove Hospital.
    
"We're excited about the opportunity to offer Blue Cross Blue Shield members the quality service that North Fulton Regional Hospital has been providing for nearly 20 years," said John Holland, CEO, North Fulton Regional Hospital. "We look forward to a successful and long-lasting relationship with Blue Cross Blue Shield."

"Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia is proud that this agreement has been reached to jointly serve this growing area of North Fulton and surrounding communities," said Charlie Harman, Vice President of Public Affairs, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia. "North Fulton Regional Hospital is a quality institution and we look forward to this partnership to provide quality, affordable health care to our many mutual members and patients."
    

North Fulton Regional Hospital, opened in 1983, is a 167-bed acute care community hospital located between the cities of Roswell and Alpharetta in North Fulton County. Serving North Georgia with a variety of medical and health-related services, the hospital has approximately 900 employees, 450 affiliated physicians, and 250 volunteers.

    
Tenet Healthcare, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates 113 acute care hospitals with 28,053 beds and numerous related health care services. The company employs approximately 111,000 people serving communities in 17 states and services its hospitals from a Dallas-based operations center.  Tenet's name reflects its core business philosophy: the importance of shared values among partners - including employees, physicians, insurers and communities - in providing a full spectrum of health care. Tenet can be found on the World Wide Web at www.tenethealth.com.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia (BCBSGA), the state's oldest and largest health benefits company, serves more than 2.1 million medical members, including both insured and administrative services only HMO, POS, PPO and indemnity products. BCBSGA is an operating subsidiary of WellPoint Health Networks Inc. (NYSE:WLP), one of the nation's largest publicly traded health care companies serving the health needs of more than 13 million medical members and approximately 42.6 million specialty members nationally. WellPoint offers a broad spectrum of quality network-based health products including open access PPO, POS, hybrid products, HMO and specialty products. Specialty products include pharmacy benefit management, dental, utilization management, vision, mental health, life and disability insurance, long term care insurance, flexible spending accounts, COBRA administration and Medicare supplements.