Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City

A Healthier You Program Shows Great Promise

• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City believes the future of healthcare cost containment lies in disease prevention and increased member accountability for lifestyle behaviors.
• In 2005, we introduced a health and wellness program called A Healthier You into the Kansas City market. This comprehensive, turn-key wellness program is designed to encourage and support lifestyle decisions that:

• promote improved health in the long-term,
• reduce medical cost in the long-term, and
• increase employee productivity in the short-term.

• More than 200 large employer groups are now participating in the program, representing 120,000 individual employees, and that number continues to grow almost daily. This program is currently in place in our large business customers in 36 states and 125 cities across the country.
• 75 percent of all of our large group customers now participate in the program.

The success is real:

• Aggregate wellness scores are increasing.
• Blood pressure levels have decreased.
• Total cholesterol levels have decreased.
• Emergency room visits by A Healthier You participating companies are down, while ER visits by non-participating companies have increased by 17 percent.
• The costs associated with these ER visits have also gone up significantly for those not participating in the program.
• Routine medical exams are going up, which shows prevention is on the rise and people are taking care of themselves better.
• Overall medical costs have trended up at a slower rate for those participating in the program (10 percent increase); non-participating companies have seen overall medical costs increase more than 17 percent.