Blue Cross of California Discontinues Participation as a Medicare Fiscal Intermediary; BCC Medicare HMO and Medicare Supplement Offerings Unaffected.Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers THOUSAND OAKS, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--May 3, 2000 Blue Cross of California (BCC) and its parent company WellPoint Health Networks Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :WLP) announced that they have determined, following a review of their strategic plan, to discontinue BCC's participation as a Medicare fiscal intermediary, effective December 1, 2000. BCC has served as the contractor for processing Medicare Part A (hospital) claims in California, Nevada and Hawaii, and home health and hospice claims for providers and Medicare beneficiaries in California, Nevada, Hawaii, Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Washington and Alaska. BCC will continue its Medicare risk HMO HMO health maintenance organization. HMO n. A corporation that is financed by insurance premiums and has member physicians and professional staff who provide curative and preventive medicine within certain financial, and Medicare supplement offerings and this action will not affect those products in any way. Simultaneous with this announcement, United Government Services, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin (UGS UGS In currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Uganda Shilling. Notes: The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ), announced that it has been awarded the contract to handle BCC's fiscal intermediary activities and will succeed to BCC's Medicare intermediary operations on a "turnkey" basis. UGS will hire the approximately 400 BCC employees presently administering BCC's contract with HCFA HCFA abbr. Health Care Financing Administration HCFA, n.pr See Health Care Financing Administration. . BCC is taking all appropriate steps in the process of exiting from the fiscal intermediary activity to achieve a smooth transition for all affected parties. BCC and UGS have agreed that affected health care providers will not be required to change the way they currently submit electronic Medicare claims. Providers submitting electronic Medicare claims to BCC will continue submitting their claims to BCC following the transition to UGS. Blue Cross of California, with 5.3 million medical members, is the California operating subsidiary of WellPoint Health Networks Inc., one of the nation's largest publicly traded managed care companies. WellPoint serves the health care needs of 7.5 million medical and approximately 32 million specialty members nationally. WellPoint offers a broad spectrum of quality network-based health products including open access PPO PPO abbr. preferred provider organization PPO Managed care Preferred provider organization, see there Infectious disease Pleuropneumonia-like organism, see there , POS (1) See point of sale and packet over SONET. (2) "Parent over shoulder." See digispeak. POS - point of sale and hybrid products, HMO and specialty products. Specialty products include pharmacy benefit management A Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) is a third party administrator of prescription drug programs. They are primarily responsible for processing and paying prescription drug claims. , dental, utilization management, vision, mental health, life and disability insurance, long term care insurance, flexible spending accounts, COBRA administration, and Medicare supplements. |
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