Lovelace Health Plan has filed a lawsuit in a bid to stop a medical group from trying to get its patients to switch insurance companies.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that Lovelace accuses the 184-physician ABQ Health Partners of breaching its agreement with the health plan by soliciting Lovelace customers to change insurers, interfering with Lovelace's business relationships with its members and violating regulations governing marketing to customers of Lovelace's Medicare Advantage plan.
The suit claimed that ABQ Health Partners engaged in a smear campaign aimed at misleading Lovelace's members in order to get members to sever their relationship with Lovelace.
ABQ Health Partners says Lovelace has provided "misinformation to our patients in what we think is an attempt to confuse or frighten them into switching doctors."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.