SAN FRANCISCO, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- In their commitment to help employers continue to provide quality healthcare coverage options for their employees, Blue Shield of California and its wholly owned subsidiary, Blue Shield of California Life & Health Insurance Company (Blue Shield Life), are introducing new, competitively priced products. In addition, Blue Shield is expanding its online enrollment services and giving employers greater flexibility in plan package options. These new products and service enhancements are designed to save time and administrative costs while providing lower cost options that provide a broad range of affordable coverage.
“We have focused our efforts on offering affordable choices to employers without limiting plan options to employees,” says Chris Ohman, senior vice president and chief executive of Blue Shield of California’s Commercial Business Unit. “With these new plan designs, increased plan selections and enhanced administrative tools, we are providing our employer groups with cost-effective access to quality care and streamlined administrative capabilities.”
Blue Shield Life’s newest health plan is Shield Spectrum PPO Plan 3000, a low-cost, high-deductible PPO product. Blue Shield of California is also offering Access+ HMO 25, a no-deductible HMO with unlimited preventive care visits. Both new products complement the recently introduced Active Choice PlansSM 500 and 750* that provide first-dollar service coverage and flexible benefit options for employer groups.
In addition to its new plan offerings, Blue Shield is providing access to Internet-based enrollment and administration to all eligible employer groups with 51 or more employees. This new service, provided by BeneTrac and BISNet, is compatible with all Blue Shield medical and ancillary plans, as well as other participating carriers’ plans. These Web-based capabilities, which enable groups to manage employee health benefits with greater efficiency and accuracy, are available to qualifying employer groups at no additional cost. Using this new enrollment and reporting system, a qualified employer group could reduce benefit administration costs by as much as 25%. This could result in savings of approximately $30,000 annually for a group with some 300 employees.
Concurrently, Blue Shield of California is introducing its PlanSelect program to give employers with as few as five employees the option to make selections from any three portfolio plans. Groups with five to 50 members can make selections from a portfolio of 11 small group plans, providing up to 350 possible plan combinations; groups of 51 or more employees can select from a list of 31 plans, resulting in 4,495 possible combinations.
“This expansion provides employers and employees with greater flexibility across core product lines,” says Ohman. “It gives them the opportunity to choose the plan that is best for them and empowers employees to maximize their contribution levels based on the plan that they pick.”
Key Shield Spectrum PPO 3000 benefits:
Shield Spectrum PPO Plan 3000 offers a comprehensive list of features. These include an affordable PPO premium, no annual benefit maximum on prescriptions, preventive care services, and access to nationwide care through the BlueCross BlueShield Association’s BlueCard(R) Program. Additional benefits for midsize groups include pharmaceutical coverage and plan-tailoring capabilities with adjustable copayment and deductible levels.
Key elements of Access+ HMO Plan 25:
This new HMO plan offers affordable HMO dues, no lifetime maximum, preventive care available from a personal physician without a copayment, and access to nationwide care for emergency services. Additional pharmaceutical benefit options and various plan design capabilities are available for midsize groups.
“Census Bureau statistics show that nearly a quarter of the uninsured population in the United States is made up of people who work at full-time jobs, many of them for small or midsize companies,” says Ohman. “Blue Shield is working to address this problem by offering groups affordable plans as well as the tools to manage their employees’ benefits in the most efficient and cost-effective manner possible.”
*Underwritten by Blue Shield of California Life & Health Insurance Company.
An Independent Licensee of the BlueShield Association, Blue Shield of California Life & Health Insurance Company (Blue Shield Life) provides a range of insurance options for Blue Shield of California group, individual and family members. Blue Shield Life has grown by offering competitive group and individual term life, accidental death and dismemberment, vision, and stop loss with Blue Shield health plans or on a stand-alone basis. In 1986, two short-term health products, Option One and Option Twelve, were launched and both policies remain among the leading products of their kind in California. Blue Shield Life, headquartered in San Francisco, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Shield of California. More information is available at http://www.bscalife.com/ or by calling (800) 443-8284.
Founded in 1939, Blue Shield of California is one of the state’s leading healthcare companies. Headquartered in San Francisco, the not-for-profit corporation has more than 2.7 million members, 4,200 employees and more than 20 office locations throughout California. For more information on Blue Shield, visit the company’s website at http://www.mylifepath.com/.
BLUE SHIELD(R) and the Shield symbols are registered service marks of the BlueCross and BlueShield Association, an Association of Independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans.
For further information, please contact Elise Anderson, Media Relations Manager of Blue Shield of California, +1-310-568-2866, elise.anderson@blueshieldca.com.
Blue Shield of California
CONTACT: Elise Anderson, Media Relations Manager of Blue Shield ofCalifornia, +1-310-568-2866, elise.anderson@blueshieldca.com
Web site: http://www.bscalife.com/
Web site: http://www.mylifepath.com/
