Company Profile :
The Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association is a national (insurance) business organization which links 38 independent regional health insurance companies in the United States as well as Puerto Rico.History of Blue Cross/Blue Shield:
The credit of setting up of the Blue Cross/Blue Shield primarily goes to Justin Ford Kimball , an experienced campaigner in hospital and medical industry, who became the vice president of Baylor University in Dallas, Texas, in 1929. Kimball had developed a health plan that offered teachers 21 days of hospital care for $6 a year. (The plan was initially extended to other employee groups in Dallas, and gradually similar plans began to be adopted nationally). In an advertisement published in 1934, the cross symbol was first used for the Hospital Service Association (today known as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota). In 1939, American Hospital Association based in Chicago began to use the Blue Cross symbol and it continued to do so until the Blue Cross Association was founded in 1960.
Parallel to the Blue Cross, another health plan business began to gain popularity in the lumber and mining camps of the Pacific Northwest. This plan would provide medical care by paying monthly fees to medical service bureaus and the first of such plan was Pierce County Medical Bureau (now known as Regence BlueShield) in Tacoma, Washington (founded in 1917) and is now forms a part of The Regence Group. Carl Metzger had created the shield symbol in Buffalo, New York in 1939.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield Companies include:
1. Public Companies:
• WellPoint
• Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield (in Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, and other cities)
• Blue Cross of California
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia
• Empire Blue Cross (New York)
• Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield (New York)
2. Private Companies
• Premera
• CareFirst
• Health Care Service Corporation
• Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield
• Highmark
• The Regence Group
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