Addressing national studies showing that racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities affect health care outcomes, BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina has concentrated efforts to adapt to the needs of South Carolina’s diverse populations.

The National Healthcare Disparities Report (http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nhdr08/nhdr08.pdf) by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, clearly demonstrated that these disparities have an impact on health care at all points in the process, at all sites of care, and for all medical conditions. Other groups, such as the Kaiser Family Foundation, also have reported disparities.

BlueChoice HealthPlan, whose South Carolina members are diverse in age, race, ethnicity, income level, geography (rural vs. urban) and gender, recognizes that these differences contribute to how individuals view their health, what their health care needs are, and what they need from their health plans.

“In the past, sometimes it was more socially acceptable not to focus on differences. But we know that certain health conditions disproportionately affect certain segments of the population,” said BlueChoice HealthPlan Vice President of Health Services Rolanda Aiken, RN, MPH. “We need to talk about differences as they relate to health, so people learn what they need to know and do what they need to do to prevent problems.”

Recognizing this, BlueChoice HealthPlan has modified educational materials for specific populations, hired staff to specialize in these populations, and sent staff into the community to reach out to these populations.

Health and disease management program educational materials are available in English and Spanish and tailored in content to an ethnically diverse audience. For example, BlueChoice HealthPlan produced cookbooks on how to adapt less healthy ethnic favorites, and brochures addressing the unique risk factors for certain conditions in some minority groups.

Educational materials represent both genders of varying ages and are available in a range of reading levels. Additionally, the health specialists who educate members by phone are ethnically diverse and range in age from 25 to 75.

In the community, BlueChoice HealthPlan was a major sponsor of the first Rural Health Conference, held in Orangeburg, S.C., last year, and is helping to plan the next one scheduled for September 2010. The health and disease management staff volunteer at community events, such as the Healthy Hoops asthma program held at sites statewide, South Carolina Conference on Diabetes (formerly known as the African American Conference on Diabetes), and health fairs and disease screenings at venues that attract diverse populations.

These experienced clinicians also are partnering with state and national organizations to train other clinical and community educators to provide culturally competent care to diverse and multicultural populations.

About BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina:
Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., BlueChoice HealthPlan of South Carolina is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. BlueChoice HealthPlan has an A+ rating from A.M. Best and an Excellent accreditation status, the highest level awarded, from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). BlueChoice HealthPlan offers four categories of group health plans, as well as individual plans for children and young adults, and a South Carolina Medicaid product

Millions of Highmark members can now access valuable health and wellness information through the free Highmark Health@Hand iPhone^® application.

The Health@Hand iPhone app gives members access to health and wellness features at their fingertips. Since the iPhone is equipped to know exactly where someone is, Highmark members can quickly find nearby participating Highmark medical facilities and health care providers such as hospitals, urgent care facilities, retail clinics and pharmacies. The app also provides interactive health information that allows members to look up information about illnesses, symptoms and medical conditions. A health and wellness section of the app offers health coaching tips and information about health and wellness programs available to Highmark members.

“Mobile phone applications open up an entirely new channel for interaction with our members. It makes health care and wellness information more portable and accessible,” said Matthew Childs, Highmark Web Strategy and Development vice president. “We chose to focus our app on health and wellness because Highmark has a long-standing commitment to helping our members ‘have a greater hand in their health.’”

The Highmark Health@Hand iPhone application is available to Highmark members. Members should log in to their specific Highmark member website, visit the “Choose Providers” tab, obtain the registration code and then link to Apple iTunes to download the application. The app will also be available directly in the Apple iTunes library, but will ask that users go to the Highmark website to receive the registration code.

Highmark partnered with A.D.A.M., an online information and technology vendor, to create the application. Highmark chose to make its health care feature available on the iPhone because it is one of the fast-growing mobile devices.

Access to a growing number of health and wellness discounts are also available through the Highmark Health@Hand iPhone app as well as on Highmark’s member websites. Last month, Highmark launched additional member discounts for a variety of national travel, nutrition, fitness, vision, hearing and complementary programs and services from companies such as Reebok, Jenny Craig, LasikPlus, Fairmont, Westin and more.

Highmark members can access the member discounts by logging into their specific Highmark member website and visiting the “Choose Providers” tab.

“We recognize that achieving good health isn’t all about health care. It’s about taking care of yourself as well,” said Childs. “These national discount partners give our members discounts of up to 50 percent on products and services that can keep them healthy and well.”

About Highmark
As one of the leading health insurers in Pennsylvania, Highmark Inc.’s mission is to provide access to affordable, quality health care enabling individuals to live longer, healthier lives. Based in Pittsburgh, Highmark serves 4.7 million people through the company’s health care benefits business. Highmark contributes millions of dollars to help keep quality health care programs affordable and to support community-based programs that work to improve people’s health. Highmark exerts an enormous economic impact throughout Pennsylvania. A recent study states that Highmark’s positive impact exceeded $2.5 billion. The company provides the resources to give its members a greater hand in their health.

Capital BlueCross continued its commitment to educating and engaging members about health care decision making by launching MyCare Advisor (SM), which is an online suite of transparency tools that assists people in understanding and comparing cost, quality and satisfaction among providers. More specifically, this enhancement to existing tools provides estimated total cost information for 57 of the most common elective services at hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and imaging centers.

MyCare Advisor is simple to access and use. Members just need to log into the secure member portal at mycapbluecross.com, click on the MyCare Advisor link, choose a procedure category and select a ZIP code.  Once this is completed, all of the facilities that meet certain criteria for the selected procedure will be displayed for review and comparison.

Information available to members will include cost ranges; the name and contact information for each facility; the network the facility is participating in; whether or not the facility has a Blue Distinction Center of Excellence designation; and the number of procedures performed annually at each facility. The cost estimate information is derived from Capital BlueCross’ claims data. By January the tool will provide information both locally and nationally.

“With the current health care climate, more and more people are taking ownership in the decision-making process for their own treatments and procedures, and we want to help them with this process,” said Bill Lehr, president and CEO of Capital BlueCross. “Most people comparison shop for anything from groceries to a new car, but most don’t realize that for routine procedures, like MRIs, X-rays or mammograms, there can be a wide variance in costs.  Knowing there is a difference is the first step in becoming an engaged health care consumer.”

Capital BlueCross is the leading health insurer in its region, providing health insurance coverage to nearly one million people in central Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley.

Capital BlueCross is committed to making health insurance simple for its customers and members through all the stages of life by offering nationally acclaimed customer service and a full range of innovative benefit programs for groups and individuals at competitive prices. Capital BlueCross received a high honor for its service by ranking highest in Member Satisfaction among all commercial health plans in the Pennsylvania Region, according to the 2010 J.D. Power and Associates National Health Insurance Plan Study. J.D. Power and Associates

By establishing a culture of caring, Capital BlueCross constantly strives to do more in order to deliver more for the men, women and children who depend on the company for their health insurance needs. Capital BlueCross has been providing health security to the people and communities of central Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley for more than 70 years and employs about 2,000 people in the region.

Headquartered in Harrisburg, Pa., Capital BlueCross is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

More information about Capital BlueCross and its subsidiaries can be found by going to www.capbluecross.com.

SOURCE Capital BlueCross

At a time when health care costs continue to rise and hospitals are advertising emergency room availability, it is becoming more important to educate consumers on how to best access ER alternatives and receive the same care with less out-of-pocket cost. If a primary care physician isn’t available, retail health clinics, walk-in doctor offices and urgent care centers can take less time and cost about the same as a regular doctor visit.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia has recently introduced a series of tools designed to provide consumers with the information they need to make the best decision when it comes to seeking treatment.

“Traditionally, emergency room visits are some of the most expensive episodes in the health care industry,” said C. Burke King, president, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia. “By utilizing technology to provide general education in innovative ways, we can help our members make better educated health care decisions and be better stewards of their health care dollar.”++

A study of Anthem claims data for its fully insured business found that more than 60 percent of ER visits for its members were in the area of avoidable visits, or diagnoses that potentially could have been treated in urgent care centers. As an example, bronchitis, one of the more expensive conditions to treat, costs on average $646 to treat in the ER, compared with $97 for an urgent care visit and $54 for a retail health clinic visit. Average costs for visits for all conditions studied ranged from $441 for the ER to $98 for urgent care and $52 for retail care. These costs represent total costs, including the portion paid by the health plan member. In 2008 according to statehealthfacts.org, there were more than 3 million total ER visits in Virginia.

Anthem has created a Google Map that identifies all of the ER alternatives (retail health clinics, urgent care centers and walk-in doctor offices) throughout the state so members have this information at their fingertips. To access the information, please visit http://www.anthem.com/eralt or simply type “Anthem urgent care” into Google or Bing. A link to the information is also available on the “member” home page at www.anthem.com. Physicians can access these maps also in order to quickly help direct their patients to the best care based on their specific situation.

In addition to utilizing the information on the company’s website, members with the 24/7 NurseLine benefit can also contact an Anthem registered nurse to learn the best place to seek care for their medical problem they are dealing with.

Manish Oza, M.D., Anthem medical director and practicing ER physician, said, “By leveraging technology and cataloging all the necessary information, Anthem’s nurse hotline can effectively triage members and provide them with all of their choices ultimately for the member to decide the appropriate venue for care.”

Not only is Anthem providing resources for members to utilize, the company is also leveraging proactive communications like interactive voice recognition calls and e-mail messaging to inform members of options. An iPhone application will launch later this year.

“We plan to leverage technology in multiple ways to touch members when they visit an ER for an avoidable visit without being intrusive,” said Oza.

Generally, urgent care clinics may be used for the following and retail health clinics in certain circumstances:

• Minor allergic reactions
• Mild asthma
• Coughs, sore throat
• Bumps, minor cuts, scrapes
• Rashes, minor burns
• Sprains, strains
• Minor fevers, colds
• Minor headaches
• Ear or sinus pain
• Eye swelling, irritation, redness or pain
• Back pain
• Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
• Minor animal bites
• Vaccinations
• X-rays
• Stitches

About Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is the trade name of Anthem Health Plans of Virginia, Inc. (serving Virginia excluding the city of Fairfax, the town of Vienna and the area east of State Route 123.). Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and its affiliated HMOs, HealthKeepers, Inc., Peninsula Health Care, Inc. and Priority Health Care, Inc. are independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. (R)ANTHEM is a registered trademark of Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Additional information about Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia is available at www.anthem.com.

SOURCE Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia

HealthPartners 1.3 million mobile subscribers will soon receive enhanced services, thanks to an agreement with Diversinet Corp., a leading innovator of secure mobile applications. HealthPartners has licensed the company’s MobiSecure^® Health platform to support applications, developed with Diversinet, to build upon the HealthPartners mobile portfolio. HealthPartners plans to begin rolling out applications this fall.

Initially, HealthPartners will offer programs to help subscribers communicate with their care managers via secure, two-way messaging on a range of smart phones and devices that the MobiSecure platform supports, including the Apple iPhone, Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm devices.

The first users will be women with high-risk pregnancies, as well as patients with chronic illnesses who have been recently discharged from hospitals. Goals will include avoiding premature births and reducing hospital readmissions.

“The new Diversinet-powered applications will enable us to extend our commitment to use technology to reach our members how and when it’s convenient for them,” said Scott Aebischer, senior vice president, customer services and product innovation. The MobiSecure platform also surpasses other solutions in delivering broad device support, wide functionality, and easy-to-understand features.”

“We are delighted that such an innovative, respected healthcare payer and provider has selected our MobiSecure platform to advance its mobile outreach,” said Mark Trigsted, Diversinet executive vice president, healthcare. “HealthPartners’ vote of confidence demonstrates early results of our strategic focus on mobile healthcare. We look forward to working with HealthPartners to leverage our secure, connected and simple solution to meet its needs.”

Babette Apland, HealthPartners senior vice president, health and care management, said: “Diversinet’s platform will enable us to communicate with and increasingly monitor patients in a more personalized, more detailed and continuous manner. We expect the new applications to contribute to our ongoing efforts to improve quality of care, patient outcomes and affordability.”

About HealthPartners
Founded in 1957, the HealthPartners (www.healthpartners.com) family of health care companies is the largest consumer-governed, nonprofit health care organization in the nation. For the fifth year in a row, HealthPartners is rated one of the best commercial health plans in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, NCQA’s “America’s Best Health Insurance Plans 2009-10.” The HealthPartners family of health plans includes HealthPartners, Inc., Group Health Plan, Inc., HealthPartners Insurance Company, and HealthPartners Administrators, Inc.

Introducing Healthy Blue Living Rewards, an extension of Blue Care Network’s successful Healthy Blue Living product. This new product is an innovative outcome-based HMO health care plan that takes personal accountability to the next level by lowering insurance costs for people who succeed in improving their health and thereby making health care more affordable.

“We are truly excited to introduce Healthy Blue Living Rewards because this is a product the business community is demanding, and BCN is once again first to market with an innovative and affordable solution,” said Kevin Klobucar, president and CEO, Blue Care Network. “Healthy Blue Living has done extremely well in the market with more than 850 employers and 114,000 members making it their product of choice, and we believe Healthy Blue Living Rewards moves this product to the next level and capitalizes on the successes we’ve had to date.”

What makes Healthy Blue Living Rewards different from Healthy Blue Living and other products in the marketplace? This product is the second outcome-based wellness product launched by the Blues this year, with Healthy Blue Outcomes being the other product we released earlier this spring. These two outcome-based products are unique in Michigan and are among the first such products to be offered anywhere in the country. While Healthy Blue Living members are rewarded for committing to working toward certain health measures, Healthy Blue Living Rewards members and families are further rewarded for actually meeting the health measures. Healthy Blue Living Rewards follows the same criteria as Healthy Blue Living but adds even more flexibility by offering three benefit levels for individuals who are at different stages of achieving their wellness goals.

The ultimate goal of Healthy Blue Living Rewards is to improve the health of our members, thus building a healthier workforce overall. This is achieved by looking at specific health measures individuals can manage.

• Tobacco use
• Weight (body mass index)
• Blood pressure
• Cholesterol
• Blood sugar
• Depression

These measures are chosen because they have a huge impact on health care costs and the likelihood that an individual will develop a chronic or disabling condition such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes or obesity.

Through participation in a wellness screening and health assessment, Healthy Blue Living Rewards members are educated on their greatest lifestyle risk factors. By including the financial reward of a lower cost share benefit plan, this product encourages members to address those factors and improve their health. There are a number of free tools and resources available to educate members and help them achieve their health goals, including BlueHealthConnection^®, Quit the Nic! (tobacco cessation program), BCN-sponsored weight management programs, 24-hour health coaching and industry leading personalized online tools.

This product became available to groups on July 1, 2010 with an October 1, 2010 effective date and is being offered to groups of two or more employees. For more information on Healthy Blue Living Rewards visit MiBCN.com.

Blue Care Network of Michigan features award-winning disease management programs and the largest HMO network of physicians and hospitals in the state, with more than 4,000 primary care physicians, 13,000 specialists and every acute care hospital in Michigan and most of the state’s other leading hospitals. Blue Care Network, a nonprofit corporation, is the affiliated HMO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For further information, visit MiBCN.com.

Linkwell Health announced today that it has been selected by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee to offer its healthy food couponing program to the health plan’s members. By presenting valuable coupons on healthy food products, BlueCross hopes to encourage better eating behaviors among its members with chronic health conditions. The coupons will be made available via targeted mailings to the members’ homes.

“One of the key goals at BlueCross is to support our members’ ongoing efforts to improve their health. We understand that diet and exercise are important factors in health and wellness,” said Robert Mandel, Senior Vice President of Health Care Services for BlueCross. “This program, which presents healthier food choices bundled with product savings, provides an opportunity for us to offer value and help our members make choices that support their health goals.”

Through its Well + Wise(SM) and MVMT for Life(SM) programs, BlueCross has long focused on new ways to help Tennesseans and its members nation-wide lead healthier lifestyles through exercise and smart food choices. The Linkwell Health program is yet another approach to health and wellness that appeals to the member through valuable food coupons.

“BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee has an unwavering dedication to addressing cost issues and injecting solutions into the health care system,” says Benjamin Gardner, President and CEO of Linkwell Health. “We are proud to be selected as one of the plan’s programs to address costs by encouraging better behaviors while also saving money for the member.”

Linkwell Health works with constituents across the health care and food industries to build healthy couponing programs that influence the buying decisions of members with chronic conditions.  Applying insights from purchase data, Linkwell Health designs customized couponing to incentivize healthier choices at the grocery store. The program analyzes purchase patterns both before and after implementation to enable plans and employers to assess impact.

About Linkwell Health

Linkwell Health applies market insights from food purchasing data to design customized food couponing programs for health plans, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and employers. Founded in 2007, Linkwell Health is a privately-owned company working with leaders in the health care industry. The company helps improve member health by offering incentives to influence daily food purchase decisions. Linkwell Health offers analytics, branded materials and performance reporting to track the impact of healthy couponing on member populations both short and long term. For more information, please visit www.linkwellhealth.com.

About BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee offers its clients peace of mind through affordable solutions for health and healing, life and living. Founded in 1945, the Chattanooga-based company is focused on reinventing the health plan for its 3 million members. Through its integrated health management approach, BlueCross is developing patient-centric products and services that positively impact affordability, patient safety and quality. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Inc. is an independent licensee of the BlueCross BlueShield Association. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.bcbst.com.

Medica, a leading health care insurance provider headquartered in Minneapolis, and HealthInsight, provider of the leading value-based healthcare incentive platform announced that they have partnered to deliver a next generation value-based benefit program to Medica’s commercial customers.

Under the agreement, Medica will deploy HealthInsight’s proprietary value-based technology, including personalized scorecards, to its commercial customers with a program that delivers better quality of care and experience for members while reducing medical costs.

The new program allows members to follow the status of their health in a simplified manner by creating personalized scorecards with personalized health actions. The scorecard will also:

• Provide information for required preventive services based on age and gender

• Proactively identify individuals at risk for chronic conditions and those with existing chronic conditions

• Track individual compliance with their personalized set of health actions

Members in compliance with their personalized health actions will be eligible for financial rewards.

Simeon Schindelman, SVP Commercial Markets said, “It is critical to address the challenge of rising health costs which, if left unchecked, cannot be sustained. Our exclusive partnership with HealthInsight allows us to be the only health plan in our market to offer customers an innovative program in which individuals can stay on the path of wellness via a set of personalized health actions focused on preventive care and chronic condition management. Our goal is to decrease healthcare costs and improve employee health.”

“We firmly believe that preventive care is the foundation for staying healthy, and our value-based programs provide the tools and technologies to reduce costs and improve employee health,” said HealthInsight CEO Martin Watson. “In teaming with Medica, we will help empower their customers to make meaningful choices toward leading a healthier life. Medica and HealthInsight share the common goals of delivering improved quality of care and reducing health care costs.”

Today, as much as 70 percent of total medical expenses are a direct result of lifestyle choices. In many cases, individuals allow chronic conditions to go untreated until treatment options become limited, quality of life suffers and the financial burden of addressing the disease increases. Using HealthInsight’s preventive care approach, members enrolled in Medica’s new program will be able to take a proactive stance toward health management, make smart choices, and manage their overall health as well as reduce the cost of healthcare.

About Medica
Medica is a health insurance company headquartered in Minneapolis and active in the Upper Midwest. With nearly 1.6 million members, the non-profit company provides health care coverage in the employer, individual, Medicaid, Medicare and Medicare Part D markets in Minnesota and a growing number of counties in North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Medica also offers national network coverage to employers who also have employees outside the Medica regional network.

About HealthInsight
HealthInsight provides a private-labeled health incentive platform to employers and health care payers. The administrative platform creates and tracks personalized health actions that are tied to incentives allowing employers and health plans to reward individuals who proactively manage their health. Individuals who complete their personalized health actions are rewarded with enhanced benefits, health care premium reductions, monetary deposits
into a Health Savings Account or Health Incentive Account and merchandise. A partnership with HealthInsight gives benefit administrators the ability to offer innovative value-based benefit solutions. Through personalized scorecards, online health coaching, and a personal health record, individuals are encouraged to play an active role in managing their health. By promoting early detection and rewarding proactive health management, in conjunction with leveraging extensive data analytics and a sophisticated team of medical professionals, HealthInsight is able to provide a solution to health care that is proven to reduce health care costs and improve employee health. For more information, please visit us at www.healthinsight.com.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has designated more than 1,800 physicians in roughly 500 practices across the state as patient-centered medical homes (PCMH), securing the initiative’s position as the largest PCMH effort in the nation.  The number of designated physicians grew by roughly 50% over the 1,200 designated PCMH physicians in 2009.

In the patient-centered medical home, primary care physicians (pediatricians, internists and family practice doctors) lead care teams that bring intensive focus to their patients’ individual health goals and needs.  The care teams work with patients to keep them healthy and monitor their care on an ongoing basis.  PCMH teams coordinate patients’ health care using registries to track patients’ conditions and assure they receive the care they need.  They offer extended access to the care team, coordinate complementary care – such as nutrition counseling – and help patients learn to self manage conditions such as asthma and diabetes.  They make sure that a patient doesn’t get lost in the system.

“Blue Cross is working in partnership with some of Michigan’s leading health care professionals to improve access for patients, improve quality and lower costs,” said Thomas L. Simmer, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer for BCBSM.  ”People want closer relationships with their doctors, not only when they are sick, but when they need advice and guidance to keep them healthy.  This program builds the type of primary care system the people of Michigan want for their families.”

Preliminary data shows that PCMH-designated doctors are succeeding in managing their patients’ care to keep them healthy and prevent complications that require expensive medical services to treat.   For example, a review of data shows that PCMH practices have a 2 percent lower rate of adult radiology usage than non-PCMH practices, and PCMH practices have a 2.6 percent lower rate of adult inpatient admissions than non-PCMH practices.

About 5,000 primary care doctors in Michigan are working toward designation as PCMH practices by transforming how their practices deliver health care services to patients.

“Physicians recognize the value that patient-centered medical home provides to their patients, and thousands are working hard to gain designation by Blue Cross,” Simmer said.  ”Our designations have grown from 1,200 to 1,800 in just one year, and I’m anticipating they will continue to increase as more physician practices bring new capabilities online in the coming months and years.”

Simmer notes that while 1,800 of the 5,000 doctors attempting designation actually achieved it for 2010, the efforts of those other 3,200 physicians should be commended for their work in supporting the PCMH model of care.

“All of these physicians are partnering with Blue Cross through this initiative to improve the primary care environment throughout the state,” Simmer said.

The benefits of PCMH reach to all the practices’ patients, because not all patients walking through the doors of a PCMH practice are insured by Blue Cross.  The Blue Cross patient-centered medical home initiative is reaching close to two million Michigan residents through designated physician offices today.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan patient-centered medical home program uses a model that considers both process of care and performance to designate physicians.  One-half of the designation score was based on the amount of PCMH capabilities the physician practices have in place – such as 24-hour telephone access, use of disease registries, and active care management.  The other one-half of the designation score was based on quality and utilization measurements, such as emergency room visits, radiology and evidence-based care measures among their patients.

Blue Cross has posted a list of PCMH designated physicians on its Web site at bcbsm.com. People interested in locating a PCMH physician in their community can go to bcbsm.com and click on “Find Doctor” at the top of the page.

The PCMH initiative is part of Value Partnerships, a collection of collaborative initiatives among physicians, hospitals and the Michigan Blues, all aimed at improving quality in medical care. To learn more about this comprehensive effort, go to www.valuepartnerships.com.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is a nonprofit corporation and independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more company information, visit bcbsm.com.

SOURCE Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan

According to a recent study, one in five hospital discharges is complicated by an adverse event within 30 days, often leading to emergency care or re-hospitalization.¹ To combat this problem, CIGNA (NYSE:CI) and CareCentrix, Inc., have teamed up to offer the Care Transitions Program to people enrolled in a CIGNA health plan after they’ve been discharged from the hospital. CareCentrix will provide specialized home nursing services that will help these individuals transition from hospital care to home recovery.

The Care Transitions Program will be offered initially in Texas over the next 12 months to people enrolled in a CIGNA health plan who are identified as at-risk for hospital readmissions. The program will be extended to more people in additional locations in 2011.

“Nobody wants to return to the hospital after they’ve been discharged, but without access to proper care and support at home, many people develop complications that can send them back within just a few weeks,” said Dr. Scott Josephs, national medical officer for CIGNA. “Through the Care Transitions Program we’re offering with CareCentrix we hope to decrease hospital readmissions and help people have a safe recovery at home.”

The Care Transitions Program was developed in conjunction with physicians and researchers who specialize in hospital discharge and transition planning. It will provide people with clinical education, resources and guidance from nurses who will monitor and support their hospital discharge, transition and recovery at home. The program will provide support in five key areas including:

• Identifying a caregiver and involving that person in the individual’s care
• Educating individuals and their caregivers about the individual’s hospital discharge plan
• Building awareness of the individual’s condition, signs/symptoms of the condition and what to do if the individual’s condition worsens
• Helping individuals manage their prescriptions and other medications
• Facilitating follow-up medical appointments

“We are excited to expand our relationship with CIGNA to bring the Care Transitions Program to the people CIGNA serves,” said Eric Reimer, chief executive officer, CareCentrix. “We are leveraging our home health care expertise and extensive home care provider network to provide people with proven and timely support to ensure they successfully transition from the hospital to recovering in the comfort of their home. In addition to reducing the number of hospital readmissions, our goal is to support people enrolled in a CIGNA health plan achieve better health outcomes over the long-term.”

About CIGNA

CIGNA (NYSE:CI), a global health service company, is dedicated to helping people improve their health, well being and sense of security. CIGNA Corporation’s operating subsidiaries provide an integrated suite of medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy and vision care benefits, as well as group life, accident and disability insurance, to approximately 46 million people throughout the United States and around the world. To learn more about CIGNA, visit www.cigna.com. To sign up for email alerts or an RSS feed of company news, log on to http://newsroom.cigna.com/rss/. Also, follow us on Twitter: @cigna and visit CIGNA’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/cignatv.

About CareCentrix

Founded in 1996, CareCentrix manages home nursing, infusion and medical equipment services for more than 10 million people across the country through a network of 5,000 credentialed home care providers. The company provides health care plans and providers with a one-stop solution that coordinates care for patients in the home including skilled nursing services, durable medical equipment and home infusion drug therapies. CareCentrix has developed a new program that will help payers and providers reduce the rising rate of hospital readmissions. CareCentrix is headquartered in East Hartford, Connecticut, and has operations in Melville, New York; Phoenix, Arizona; Tampa, Florida; and Albuquerque, New Mexico; and a new regional care center recently opened in Overland Park, Kansas. For more information about CareCentrix visit www.carecentrix.com.