The federally and state-funded Community Health Center of Central Wyoming will no longer accept patients with workers' compensation claims as of Saturday, according to a letter from the agency.

"Due to the added expense and delay in payment and the excessive requirements that the Workers Compensation insurance companies put on our billing department, effective October 10, 2009, we will no longer bill Workers Compensation insurers for office visits and treatment related to workers comp claims," according to the Sept. 10 letter from the Community Health Center's interim CEO Rosemary Lantta.

That includes employees covered by the Workers Safety & Compensation division of the Wyoming Department of Employment, its customer service representative Larry Hammons said.

The letter was sent to a Mills resident who wished to remain anonymous.

Lantta was out of the office on Wednesday, and did not return a call requesting comment.

The center, located at 1522 E. A St., is one of six such agencies in Wyoming, and is open to everyone regardless of whether they have insurance, and cost of services is determined on a sliding scale. The Casper and Cheyenne offices are affiliated with the University of Wyoming's family practice residency program.

Lantta's letter referred affected patients to three local health care offices: Western Medical Associates, Dr. Dana Ideen & Dr. Marjorie Wells Family Clinic, and Employee Health Solutions of the Wyoming Medical Center.

Dorothy Mosher, family practice nurse practitioner with the Ideen & Wells Clinic, said she is taking some of the Community Health Center's patients on a limited basis. The doctors are not taking new patients at this time, Mosher said.

According to the letter, Lantta said the affected patients should contact the Community Health Center to transfer their records about their workers' compensation-related injuries after they have been accepted by one of the offices.

The center will continue to see the patients for visits and treatment not related to an injury covered by workers' compensation insurance, according to the letter.

"We apologize for the inconvenience this will cause, but feel this change is necessary to help control costs for all our patients.

"Thank you for your cooperation in helping us insure we can continue to provide quality family practice medical care to Natrona County," Lantta wrote.

Hammons said the Community Health Center is the only one of the six that has decided to no longer participate with the state's workers' compensation division.

He does not know what other insurance companies are affected by the Community Health Center's decision, he added.

The center told him a couple of months ago that it would no longer bill insurers for workers' compensation claims, but it did not send him a copy of the letter, he said.

The Wyoming workers' compensation operates pays the bills for employees' on-the-job injuries whose companies belong to the system in exchange for the employees relinquishing their right to sue employers for being hurt at work.

The Wyoming system also requires participating health care providers and employers to accept its fee schedule, Hammons said. "Employers by statute cannot charge employees beyond what we pay."

He did not know if the Community Health Center thought the fee schedule was unacceptable, but he said the workers' compensation division does not add excessive requirements or delays in payments to health care providers.

The center, Hammons added, was acting within its authority when it decided to no longer treat workers' compensation injuries.

"It's the right of any health care provider to accept or not accept us," he said.

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. Read his blog at tribtown.trib.com/TomMorton/blog