Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas Login
It may exist known today as the largest and oldest payer group in the United states, but the Blue Cross Bluish Shield Association (BCBSA) used to be ii dissimilar organizations.
One was called the Bluish Cross Association, and the other the Association of Blueish Shield Plans.
These two had separate paths of development—paths that intersected when they merged in 1982, forming BCBSA.
Currently, the BCBSA has at least 106 1000000 members across the country (plus its federal territories). Fellow member companies have contracts with more 96 percent of the nation's hospitals, and over 93 percent of all doctors belong to the BCBSA network (1).
Compared to figures posted past other insurers, BCBSA remains unmatched.
With the association's extensive achieve, information technology's difficult to imagine that a century ago, health insurance was not an pick. It did not exist.
Access to quality health care was limited, with most ordinary Americans not being able to beget it.
Hospitals and doctors, for their part, lacked the financial resources for certain medical practices, solutions and technologies.
But thanks in large part to Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies, the concept of wellness insurance was born, benefiting American society in myriad ways.
From pre-paid grouping practices where program members gained access to an assortment of medical services via a selected network of providers, Blue Cross and Blueish Shield paved the way for health insurance equally we know information technology today.
Undoubtedly both also played important roles in the surge in healthinsurance coverage betwixt 1940 and 1955, during which the segment of the population with coverage increased from less than ten per centum to nigh 70 per centum (2).
Blue Cantankerous
Blue Cross was formed first, with its roots dating to 1929. Information technology was designed to provide prepaid coverage for hospital care services.
The plan was really based on a prototype created by Justin Ford Kimball. Kimball was vice president of health care facilities at Baylor Academy in Dallas, Texas, when he came up with a plan that granted teachers 21 days of hospital care access treat a toll of merely $6 per yr (3). This is widely considered the world's commencement-always prepayment program in hospital care. It caught on fast, adopted initially by other Dallas-based employee groups earlier spreading on a national scale.
From more 1,300, Blue Cross members reached 35,000 past 1933, during which Bluish Cross plans numbered 16 (4).
More and more plans were introduced in the years that followed, and in x years' time Blue Cantankerous was already covering three million individuals (two).
The plans became recognized throughout the state past the Blue Cross symbol, which, equally one historian put it, "perpetuated itself as a unifying force" (2).
The origins of this symbol are traced back to 1934, when East.A. van Steenwyk commissioned Joseph Folder, a Viennese artist, to create a poster with a solid blue Greek cross painted on it. Steenwyk, who was at the time executive secretary of the Hospital Service Clan, used the blueprint as an identifying element for the company's hospital care plan and health plans.
In 1939, the American Infirmary Association (AHA) tapped the Bluish Cantankerous symbol as an emblem for all standards-compliant health plans in the U.s.a..
Past 1960, however, the Blue Cantankerous Association superseded the AHA commission. Blueish Cross ended its ties with AHA in 1972, and in 1973 the AHA seal that appeared along the Bluish Cantankerous symbol was replaced past a silhouette of a human figure stylized to symbolize humanity.
Blue Shield
The first official Blue Shield plan emerged in 1939 in California, ten years after Blue Cross was established.
While Blueish Cross focused on infirmary intendance, Blueish Shield was adult equally a manner of covering physicians' services.
The concept backside this plan was inspired by employers of the mining and lumbar camps located in the Pacific Northwest.
Hazards of the job fabricated workers there prone to chronic illnesses as well every bit serious injuries, and so making medical care hands available and accessible was a must.
Employers fabricated this possible by paying physicians a monthly fee for their medical services.
The organisation gave rise to "medical service bureaus," which brought together physicians to provide this kind of service.
Pierce County physicians organized the outset medical service bureau—the Pierce Country Medical Bureau—in Tacoma, Washington, in 1917. The bureau exists to this day, although it is now called Regence BlueShield.
This pioneering system laid the groundwork for Blue Shield, which was built around the goal of reimbursing services rendered by physicians.
The Blue Shield symbol was created in the same year that the Blueish Shield program was formally introduced. Carl Metzger, head of the Blue Shield Plan in Buffalo, New York, had its blueprint commissioned.
The symbol, which features a serpent and the U.S. Army Medical Corps insignia, was meant to represent this new medical service plan and establish its link to the companion hospital plan. Soon after it was launched, it became a fixture in a growing number of Blue Shield plans.
Among those that adopted the Blueish Shield was the Associated Medical Care Programme, which began using the symbol in 1948. This group of nine plans would later become known every bit the National Association of Bluish Shield Plans.
Blue Cross and Bluish Shield
Blue Cross and Blue Shield merged in 1982, and since then the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has worked to provide personalized health coverage in every state and federal territory. Now its coverage extends to nearly one-in-3 Americans.
The clan is composed of 36 U.S. health insurance companies and organizations. These franchises operate independently of the association and are community based.
Equally licensees, they provide health insurance plans under either association's brands and inside specified regions. The forms of coverage may differ, but residents in each country can enjoy access to some kind of coverage.
In addition, Blue Cantankerous and Blue Shield companies are among the U.S. government's major partners in administering Medicare, a health program designed for the country's disabled and elderly population.
The partnership dates back to the 1960s, when the Medicare nib was signed into law by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. The government relied on the established infrastructure of Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations to keep the new plan from existence besides cost prohibitive.
Successfully launched in 1966, Medicare began with over 19 million participants.At present, the services of Blueish Cross and Blue Shield companies reach an estimated 42 million Medicare participants (2). The Blue system, in fact, processes the about number of Medicare claims throughout the country (4).
Blue Cross Blue Shield plans also cover more than than 50 percent of land regime employees and retirees likewise as their families via the Federal Employees Program.The program, which was created following the enactment of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Human action, has about 5.6million members (1).
No other national carrier covers as many workers and retirees along with families equally the Blue organization does. This isn't surprising equally both Blue Cross and Blue Shield made organizedlabor a priority ever since they were established, encouraging the American workforce to actively participate in the wellness care system.
On the whole, enrollment in Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans has been on a rise, with the number of memberstopping 34 million in 1996 and reaching 88 million in 2003 (4).
The Instance with California
Blue Cross and Blue Shield may be merged under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Clan in the majority of states. In California, nonetheless, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California are 2 separate—and competing—health insurance companies with large networks.
Bachelor in all counties, their Preferred Provider Organization(PPO) and (Wellness Maintenance Organization) HMO networks both consist of 400 or so hospitals and approximately 50,000 doctors (5).
The primal difference between them lies in the fact that Anthem Blue Cross is a for-profit carrier while Blue Shield is a not-profit organization.
Anthem Blue Cross is also bigger in terms of members (to date, it has about viii.three million enrollees) and number of wellness insurance applications (vi)(7).
The company caters to the individual, small group, large group and senior markets, offering a total and diverse range of options that include dental, disability, vision and life coverage.
In addition, the National Committee for Quality Assurance gave Anthem Blue Crossfullaccreditation, making it the only PPO in the state to ever earn that recognition (8).
As a non-profit entity, Blue Shield of California is big on ethical values and on giving back to the community. At times, it also provides wellness discounts and credits to members.
And as one of the independent members of the Blue Shield Association, the arrangement has access to the Blue Shield HMO and PPO network, assuasive it to offer affordable prices to those from the small grouping, Medicare supplement and private markets.
Even though they were developed equally split up entities with singled-out goals, Blue Cantankerous and Blue Shield have long been a part of many Americans' health care journey. They have institute their way into homes and offices throughout the U.s.a.. And they're hither to stay, providing proper and quality medical care to their members, fostering ties with hospitals and doctors, and constantly seeking means to amend their services and brand information technology more accessible to even more Americans.
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Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas Login
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