Care and Costs Should Not Be a Mystery

Before you go to the doctor, do you know how much you’ll be paying or what follow up treatments you will need? Do you know what your healthcare provider is doing before you even enter the facility to ensure you receive affordable and quality care? BCBSAZ believes this information should not be difficult to find or understand, but rather give you the power make better choices about how and where you receive care.

BCBSAZ is working with healthcare providers to more effectively manage and coordinate care so our members get the right treatment at the right time, while eliminating inefficiencies, redundancy and waste that drive healthcare costs for our members. 

The following are just two examples of how BCBSAZ is helping improve care while managing costs: 

• Transition of Care program encourages members to follow their hospital discharge treatment instructions, such as taking their prescriptions and keeping follow-up appointments. This program is also focused on fostering clear communication among providers, making the recovery process for our members less stressful. Through the support of the Transition of Care program, there is an improvement in a patient’s recovery, while reducing costs associated with hospital stays or hospital readmissions. With the Transition of Care program launch in 2011, we saw a decrease in claims cost of approximately $1.3 million over a two-year period. This savings helps keep overall costs lower for everyone.
• Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) program works to promote better communication and closer contact between patients and their primary care physicians. The goal of the PCMH program is to improve patient care outcomes by encouraging primary care physicians to practice evidence-based medicine. Chronic conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure and diabetes have a major impact on healthcare costs. Through this program, we link arms with physicians to promote comprehensive, coordinated care for patients with these chronic conditions. Our model encourages physicians to work with their patients to set and achieve measurable performance metrics that will improve overall health and reduce costs.

BCBSAZ also is pushing for more accountability in how doctors and hospitals are paid, rewarding them for meaningful health outcomes and not just merely the number of services they provide. 

We’re asking our providers to talk with their patients (our members) about costs and treatment options to ensure you have the information you need to make the best healthcare decisions possible. 

To help, we offer an online suite of tools that gives our members access to doctor reviews, treatment cost estimators and treatment timeline calculators, so you can make better informed choices about how you spend your healthcare dollars. 

Eliminating the mystery and uncertainty of healthcare choices is one way we can increase the value of care, not the cost of it.