Blue Cross of California Promotes Michael Higgins to Senior Vice President, Large Group Division.To download high-resolution, print-ready JPEG JPEG in full Joint Photographic Experts Group Standard computer file format for storing graphic images in a compressed form for general use. JPEG images are compressed using a mathematical algorithm. images, click on the thumbnail image above. WARNING: these images are very large (800K+) Click here for caption Business Editors/People Editors NOTE TO MEDIA: Multimedia assets available A photo is available at URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. : http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/photo.cgi?pw.110403/bb6 WOODLAND HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 2003 Blue Cross of California (Blue Cross) today announced the promotion of Michael C. Higgins to senior vice president of the Large Group Division. Effective immediately, Higgins will oversee all large group operations, including sales, administration and underwriting functions for employer segments with more than 50 employees including public entities accounts. Higgins reports directly to Blue Cross President and C.E.O. David Helwig. Most recently Higgins served as general manager, Blue Cross special and national accounts where he was responsible for all services provided to large group commercial customers as well as labor accounts with more than 500 employees. Higgins joined the company in 1983 and has served in various management positions ranging from director of proposal development to vice president, major account sales and marketing. "Mike has been instrumental throughout the years in defining and meeting the unique needs of our large group and national accounts clients as well as the large group brokerage and consulting communities," said Helwig. "His expertise and experience will serve the company well as he moves into this expanded role." Higgins is credited with creating the Blue Cross Power CareAdvocate PPO PPO abbr. preferred provider organization PPO Managed care Preferred provider organization, see there Infectious disease Pleuropneumonia-like organism, see there , an innovative hybrid product that combines key features of both 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 PPO programs with extensive consumer information tools and customer support. The Power Suite group of products championed by Higgins, which includes the consumer choice offering from Blue Cross called the Power HealthFund PPO, has been instrumental in fueling growth in the large account segment for the company. Prior to joining Blue Cross of California, Higgins was a senior consultant in health care benefits with Johnson and Higgins in Los Angeles, and a risk and insurance manager for The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo. Higgins began his career as a group underwriter for Transamerica Occidental Life in Los Angeles. A graduate of the University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). at Riverside with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, Higgins has been designated an associate in risk management by the Insurance Institute of America. He is a member of Town Hall Los Angeles Town Hall Los Angeles is a non-profit speaker's forum based in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1937. It has hosted over 3500 unpaid speakers, including
Blue Cross of California and its California affiliates, with more than 7 million medical members, is an operating subsidiary of WellPoint Health Networks Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :WLP), one of the nation's largest publicly traded health care companies. WellPoint serves the health care needs of more than 14 million medical members and approximately 44 million specialty members nationally. WellPoint offers a broad spectrum of quality network-based health products including open access PPO, 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. 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. Note: A photo is available at URL: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/photo.cgi?pw.110403/bb6 |
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