Tufts Medical, Blue Cross End Contract Standoff

Tens of thousands of Tufts Medical Center patients will be able to keep their physicians because of an agreement reached with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

The two sides have agreed to a three-year contract, which would increase fees to Tufts by an average of 3 percent.

Last month, Tufts had said it would stop accepting Blue Cross insurance in January because they couldn't agree to a new contract.

The agreement ends weeks of uncertainty over whether nearly 90,000 Blue Cross customers would be forced to leave their Tufts doctors.

Amy Whitcomb Slemmer, director of Health Care for All, says her organization received many calls from concerned patients.

"One woman had been newly diagnosed by a doc at Tufts and felt very strongly that if she didn't have continuing care in this doctor's practice, that her health would suffer," she said.