The Arizona Complete Health settlement is a May 2, 2025 agreement with the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) that resolved a protest fight over the state’s long-term care contracts by awarding Arizona Complete Health a statewide contract alongside three other health plans. The deal has not taken effect. A court-ordered stay blocked implementation before the scheduled October 1, 2025 start date, and the existing long-term care plans have been extended through September 30, 2026 while the matter remains unresolved.
What Contract the Settlement Covers
The agreement concerns the Arizona Long Term Care System for Elderly and/or Physically Disabled individuals, known as ALTCS-EPD. The program provides physical and behavioral healthcare, pharmacy benefits, and home- and community-based services to roughly 26,000 Arizonans who are elderly or have a physical disability. AHCCCS divides the state into three Geographic Service Areas: Central, Northern, and Southern.
Arizona Complete Health is a wholly owned Centene subsidiary and the largest Medicaid managed care plan in Arizona, covering more than 400,000 members as of 2025. It had not previously held an ALTCS-EPD contract. The settlement was its route into the long-term care program.
What Each Plan Received
Instead of the original two-plan award that triggered the dispute, four plans received contracts under the settlement:
- Arizona Complete Health-Long Term Care (Bridgeway Health Solutions of Arizona, Inc.): statewide, all three GSAs.
- UnitedHealthcare Community Plan (Arizona Physicians IPA, Inc.): statewide, all three GSAs.
- Banner-University Family Care: Central and Southern GSAs.
- Mercy Care: Central GSA plus a Southern assignment limited to Pima County.
BCBSAZ Health Choice, the fifth bidder in the original procurement, was not included.
Each contract is a three-year base term running October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2028, with annual extension options for up to three additional years, for a maximum term of six years. The dollar value was not publicly disclosed.
Why the Settlement Hasn’t Taken Effect
After the May 2025 announcement, a separate legal challenge produced a court-issued stay that blocked the new contracts from starting on October 1, 2025. The party behind that challenge has not been publicly confirmed, though BCBSAZ Health Choice, the only original bidder left out of the settlement, is a likely candidate.
AHCCCS responded in August 2025 by extending its existing ALTCS-EPD contracts with the three incumbent plans — Mercy Care, Banner-University Family Care, and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan — through September 30, 2026. ALTCS-EPD members keep their current coverage during the extension. Arizona Complete Health has said it is monitoring the situation.
The original procurement itself was formally terminated by a notice dated September 18, 2025, closing out the contested RFP. As of mid-2026, the stay remains in place and none of the new contracts have taken effect.
How the Dispute Got Here
AHCCCS spent more than a year developing the procurement with an outside consultant and anticipated awarding up to two contracts in the Northern and Southern GSAs and three in the Central GSA. On December 1, 2023, the agency instead announced just two statewide awards: Health Net Access, Inc. (operating as Arizona Complete Health) and Arizona Physicians IPA, Inc. (operating as UnitedHealthcare Community Plan). The three shut-out bidders — Mercy Care, Banner-University Family Care, and BCBSAZ Health Choice — all filed protests within weeks.
An administrative law judge who reviewed the matter found that AHCCCS “did not comply with statutes and regulations or were otherwise improper” in issuing the original contracts. That finding halted the transition planned for October 1, 2024 and set up the negotiations that produced the four-plan settlement.
Not the Same as the Centene Pharmacy Settlements
The ALTCS-EPD settlement is a state procurement dispute and is separate from the pharmacy benefit manager settlements Centene reached with at least 20 states, including Arizona, over allegations involving its Envolve Pharmacy Solutions subsidiary and Medicaid drug pricing. Those settlements, for which Centene set aside $1.25 billion, concern different conduct and different legal claims and have no bearing on the ALTCS-EPD contracts described above.