Blue Cross of California Enhances Information-Referral System; System Expansion Improves Response Time to Provider Inquiries.WOODLAND HILLS, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--March 8, 1999--Blue Cross of California, the California subsidiary of WellPoint Health Networks Inc., one of the nation's largest publicly traded managed-care companies, has expanded its inquiry-response system to provide greater and more immediate responses to a variety of provider inquiries. The enhancements made to the Blue Cross of California Fax Back system, a component of the company's interactive voice response system, give providers immediate access to eligibility and benefits information, which they can receive in written format through their internal facsimile machines. The Fax Back system, which is part of the Blue Cross Provider Access program that is designed to establish and improve electronic connectivity and communication for the provider community, now gives providers an opportunity to verify more patient data in a single phone call. Providers currently can request up to 50 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/or PPO PPO abbr. preferred provider organization PPO Managed care Preferred provider organization, see there Infectious disease Pleuropneumonia-like organism, see there patient inquiries and receive the information within moments through available facsimile machines. To ensure that providers receive the requested data as quickly as possible, the system has been designed to redial In telecommunication, an automatic redial is a service feature that allows the user to dial, by depressing a single key or a few keys, the most recent telephone number dialed at that instrument. a provider's fax number automatically up to six times to deliver the information. "We enhanced our voice response system to improve communication time and effort and bring greater efficiency to our provider's administration," said Ron Williams
"Our primary consideration is to create systems that provide maximum functionality with limited navigation," added Barbara Lynch, Blue Cross vice president of provider services. "Our Fax Back system has been well received by the provider community. We continue to focus on expanding our technology to give our provider community more comprehensive member information quickly and efficiently." Blue Cross of California, with nearly 4.7 million medical members, is the California operating subsidiary An operating subsidiary is a business term frequently used within the United States railroad industry. In the case of a railroad, it refers to a company that is a subsidiary but operates with its own identity and rolling stock. of WellPoint Health Networks, one of the nation's largest publicly traded managed-care companies. WellPoint serves the health-care needs of more than 6.9 million medical and more than 24.7 million specialty members nationally. WellPoint offers a broad spectrum of quality, network-based products including HMO, PPO, POS (1) See point of sale and packet over SONET. (2) "Parent over shoulder." See digispeak. POS - point of sale and specialty managed-care 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, flexible spending accounts flexible spending account, n an employee reimbursement account primarily funded with employee-designated salary reductions. Funds are reimbursed to the employee for health care (medical and/or dental), dependent care, and/or legal expenses and are , COBRA administration and Medicare supplements. |
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