DALLAS – Tenet Healthcare Corporation has signed a new multi-year agreement with UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group company.

Under the new agreement, effective Jan. 1, 2010, UnitedHealthcare commercial and Medicare Advantage health plan participants have access to health care services at all hospitals owned and operated by Tenet subsidiaries as well as Tenet's 59 freestanding diagnostic imaging centers and ambulatory surgery centers. Tenet Physicians, Inc., which contracts for the more than 400 physicians employed by various Tenet subsidiaries, also is part of the new agreement.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

“UnitedHealthcare is a leader in facilitating access to quality care for its customers, so we are pleased to have reached this agreement for our facilities and physicians,” said Clint Hailey, Tenet’s chief managed care officer. “This agreement recognizes Tenet’s achievements in clinical quality and rewards us for our continuous quality improvements. Also, the new agreement has been simplified and enables our hospitals, outpatient centers and employed physicians to receive attractive rates for the high quality care they provide to UnitedHealthcare’s customers. We are looking forward to continuing our excellent relationship with UnitedHealthcare.”

Under the agreement, Tenet’s hospitals may qualify for additional financial incentives for achieving certain quality criteria. As announced in August 2009, 29 of Tenet’s hospitals had received 73 quality designations for cardiac care under the UnitedHealth Premium Designation Program.

“Tenet Healthcare’s facilities and providers offer valuable, quality health care services to our plan participants, so we are pleased to have signed this new agreement that significantly enhances our relationship on behalf of our customers,” said Michael O’Boyle, president, UnitedHealth Networks. “The new agreement reinforces UnitedHealthcare’s mission of providing our customers with access to affordable, quality health care.”

Tenet Healthcare Corporation is a health care services company whose subsidiaries and affiliates own and operate acute care hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and diagnostic imaging centers. Tenet's hospitals and related health care facilities are committed to providing high quality care to patients in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit www.tenethealth.com.

UnitedHealthcare (www.unitedhealthcare.com) provides a full spectrum of consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services to individuals, public sector employers and businesses of all sizes, including more than half of the Fortune 100 companies. The company organizes access to quality, affordable health care services on behalf of approximately 25 million individual consumers, contracting directly with more than 600,000 physicians and care professionals and 5,000 hospitals to offer them broad, convenient access to services nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group, a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.