Blue Cross of California Launches Store and Forward Telemedicine Site at Sablan Medical Corporation.

Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers

CAMARILLO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 2002

Blue Cross of California's (Blue Cross) state sponsored programs today announced the implementation of store and forward telemedicine at the Sablan Medical Corporation primary care clinic in Firebaugh, California, a rural community in Fresno County. As a member of the Blue Cross telemedicine program, Sablan will play a key role in increasing access to specialty care services for Blue Cross' rural Medi-Cal and Healthy Families Program members.

Blue Cross purchased and installed the Second Opinion Professional Store and Forward software designed and produced by Second Opinion Software, LLP, for the Sablan Medical Clinic and more than 15 other telemedicine sites within its telemedicine network. By using store and forward software, a primary care physician is able to create electronic patient folders to store patient data and images that are sent via encrypted e-mail to a receiving specialty location. The receiving specialist reviews the patient images and data off-line, prepares a recommendation and sends it back to the primary care physician. This decreases member wait times for specialty consults and enhances continuity of care for members by eliminating the need to set a real time appointment between the primary care physician, the patient and the specialist. Front office physician costs are also reduced through the simplification of patient data tracking and scheduling.

When using the store and forward option, participating Blue Cross primary care physicians are reimbursed for a standard office visit while participating specialty physicians are reimbursed for a second opinion.

"We are delighted to offer this capability not only for our members, but also for our participating physicians," said John Monahan, senior vice president of Blue Cross' state sponsored programs. "This type of application and reimbursement for telemedicine services demonstrates our commitment to working with our network physicians to help them provide our members with the best possible care."

Currently, Blue Cross' telemedicine network experiences more than 1,500 live consults per year. Bridget Cole, Blue Cross' telemedicine program manager, says store and forward will be used for consultations that do not require extensive interaction between the patient and the specialist. Store and forward has the potential to significantly increase Blue Cross' network volume of specialty consults in areas such as dermatology and ear, nose and throat.

Blue Cross launched the first-of-its-kind rural telemedicine program in July 1999. The program was made possible through an initial $1.8 million Rural Health Demonstration Project award that the Company received in October 1998. The initial award and subsequent grants totaling more than $2.7 million were issued from the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB) as part of the Healthy Families Program, the state-sponsored insurance program offering low-cost health, dental and vision coverage to children of low-income working families. Based on the grants awarded by MRMIB, the target populations for Blue Cross' telemedicine program encompassed not only rural Healthy Families Program members, but also rural Medi-Cal members throughout California.

With a long-standing history of providing access to quality care for underserved communities, Blue Cross of California is the largest health care coverage provider for state managed programs in California with more than 783,000 Medi-Cal members and approximately 229,000 Healthy Families Program members. Blue Cross Medi-Cal managed care programs are available in Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Joaquin, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, and Tulare counties. The Blue Cross Healthy Families Program is available in all 58 counties in California.

Blue Cross of California and its California affiliates, with more than 6.8 million medical members, is an operating subsidiary of WellPoint Health Networks Inc., one of the nation's largest publicly traded health care companies. WellPoint serves the health care needs of more than 13 million medical members and approximately 46.6 million specialty members nationally. WellPoint offers a broad spectrum of quality network-based health products including open access PPO, POS and hybrid products, HMO and specialty products. Specialty products include pharmacy benefit management, dental, utilization management, vision, mental health, life and disability insurance, long term care insurance, flexible spending accounts, COBRA administration, and Medicare supplements. Blue Cross of California may be found on the web at www.bluecrossca.com. Blue Cross of California is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Association.