Baptist Health Signs With HealthLink.

BAPTIST HEALTH OF LITTLE Rock has signed a deal allowing insurance customers of HealthLink Inc., an affiliate of Missouri Blue Cross and Blue Shield, to use its hospitals said Brett Kirkman, HealthLink's regional director for sales and network management for Arkansas and west Tennessee.

The Baptist agreement applies only to about 30,000 people in Arkansas who are insured by HealthLink's preferred provider organization (PPO) product, Kirkman said. Most of those insured are in the north half of the state, he said.

HealthLink's PPO network also includes members of Central Arkansas Independent Physicians Association and a number of individual specialists, Kirkman said.

A year ago, HealthLink said it had suspended its two-year effort to start an HMO operation in Arkansas because it couldn't sign up hospitals to serve its members. But the company is apparently still trying.

Kirkman said last week that an announcement would probably be made in June on the signing of a Little Rock hospital for HMO members. No effort to sign up HMO customers has been made, he said. But since all HMOs have left the state except QCA, Health Advantage and United Healthcare, "we think there's room," he said.

HealthLink is a subsidiary of RightChoice Managed Care Inc. of St. Louis (NYSE: RIT), which also owns the Blue Cross and Blue Shield franchise for Missouri. HealthLink has about 2 million covered lives in its eight-state region.