HARRISBURG (AP) — Patients in western Pennsylvania bracing for higher costs under the pending breakup of the business relationship between two large Pittsburgh-based health care providers will soon learn whether that can be delayed.

A state judge on Friday said he hoped to rule by June 14 about what UPMC, Highmark Health and the attorney general’s office meant by a provision in their 2014 consent decree that said it can be modified.

If UPMC succeeds in ending its deal with Highmark as scheduled on July 1, it will trigger higher costs for Highmark insurance customers who get treatment at UPMC’s vast network of hospitals, doctors and other medical providers.

The attorney general’s office is seeking to extend the consent decree indefinitely, arguing that UPMC has obligations to the public as a charity, a status that gives it tax protection.

Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson laid out a compressed schedule, including a hearing on June 11-12.

“The question is whether the termination date can be modified, yes or no,” Simpson told lawyers during an hour-long proceeding in Harrisburg. If the answer is yes, he said, then the next question is how long or what an extension will look like.

“I think we’ve got to get this out of here in about two weeks,” Simpson said.

Stephen Cozen, a lawyer for UPMC, said the other side has to prove that in 2014, UPMC knew about their interpretation that the decree can be extended — and agreed to it.

The state Supreme Court earlier this week asked for the proceedings, and it’s all but certain that the justices will review whatever Simpson determines.

“The ultimate decision’s going to be with them,” Simpson said.

The business relationship between the two had been about to end when then-Gov. Tom Corbett got them to sign the consent decree — technically two, because the sides would not deal directly with each other — that kept in-network rates for Highmark customers in the Pittsburgh area and Erie.

UPMC had been opposed to renewing their agreement in 2012 after Highmark purchased what’s now Allegheny Health Network and became a UPMC competitor in health services and insurance coverage.

Cozen argued that Highmark should not be a party to the hearing because they signed a separate consent decree. But Highmark attorney Douglas Cameron said Highmark participated in the Supreme Court argument and will be bound by whatever decision comes out of the case. Simpson did not immediately rule on that issue.

Afterward, Cozen downplayed the potential impact of the breakup on Highmark patients.

“People have been preparing for this forever, and that’s why there was a five-year transition,” Cozen said, arguing that there is “plenty of competition” and relationships between Highmark providers and UPMC.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, sued in February to keep the consent decree in place.

He’s argued that UPMC has wasted charitable assets through “exorbitant executive salaries and perquisites in the form of corporate jets and prestigious office space waste.”

“I can’t sit idly by and watch our seniors and children and workers suffer because of corporate greed,” Shapiro said at the time.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press.