Chicago-based Health Care Service Corp., the umbrella company of five Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, will invest $1.5 billion in initiatives to cut its members' healthcare costs.
Here are four things to know about the three-year effort, dubbed Affordability Cures.
1. Affordability Cures isn't a new company. HCSC's Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas will deploy the initiative.
2. The effort will target five areas: collaborative care, household financial security, productive employees, healthy communities, and digitally-driven and data-rich actions.
3. HCSC is working on creating parameters to outline how the insurer will invest in, reduce costs and measure effects of Affordability Cures.
4. The announcement comes after HCSC said its 2017 operating income climbed to "levels required to sustain operations while enabling the company to invest in the future, following significant losses." HCSC earned $1.3 billion in 2017 and expanded membership by 315,000.
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