If you’re healthy, you want to stay healthy. If you’re dealing with a sudden, short-term illness, you want to get the information and treatment you need to get back to your old self. And if you’re facing a chronic (long-term) illness, you want to know how best to manage your condition.

That’s why we’ve created Blueprint for Health^® for Medicare Eligibles. It’s an action plan that goes beyond the notion of traditional service to help our members with personalized, caring solutions. We’ve packaged all our care and service programs to support who you are, where you live and what you need when you need it.

Dedicated professionals committed to working on your behalf can provide valuable information about:

• Preventive screenings
• Health care services ordered by your doctors
• Medicare benefits

But it doesn’t end there. Blueprint for Health brings with it a level of service you can depend on. Our customer advocates will support, encourage and guide you every step of the way so you can understand and access affordable, innovative health care options at just the right time and in just the right way. They will go the extra mile to help you find the resources you need—whether it’s a community program or a service like Meals on Wheels.

Whether healthy or dealing with health issues, you can take advantage of a Blueprint for Health program to help you make smarter health care decisions, enjoy better health outcomes and reduce your health care costs. These value-added services are offered at no additional cost to you.

Staying healthy through prevention and wellness
The Blueprint for Health program can help you understand your health risks and the steps you can take to best improve your health. We offer:

• Awareness and education
• Health risk assessments
• BlueComplements^SM, offering an array of discounted products and value-added services, such as our vision program(see What's New, “Get vision care discounts with EyeMed”)

Support for understanding your options
A smart consumer must be actively involved in making decisions about his or her health care. If you have a long-term condition, like diabetes, or suffer the sudden onset of an acute illness, getting critical information is important.

Armed with this information, you can ask appropriate questions of your health care provider and make better decisions about who will treat you and where, as well as what treatments are best for you. Understanding how to best manage a chronic condition can add to your quality of life.

We understand this. That’s why we provide you with the tools and services you need to:

• Get information about various conditions
• Find prescription drug information
• Choose the most qualified doctor and hospital for your needs
• Estimate your costs before your health care visit
• Determine the best treatment option

Support for your doctors
Helping you is only part of the equation. We work closely with participating doctors and other health care providers to encourage delivery of the best medicine, offering various programs and tools such as:

• A reward program for physicians who consistently provide the highest standard of care and service
• Patient safety information to make the health care you receive as safe as possible
• Secure access to your health claims records with as complete a picture as possible of your medical history
• Cultural competence training to help eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care treatment and to help you and your doctor communicate effectively

I treat every customer as if they were a member of my family. I have an older father, and I would hope he gets taken care of in the same way.”
—Cynthia Fern, Service Advocate

Blueprint for Health is all that and more. It’s one answer to the question, “How can BLUE help you?”

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Blueprint for Health is all about you
Our members aren’t just contract numbers. They have real lives—real health problems. And they need real help. That’s why we created Blueprint for Health. Because your health insurance isn’t about us—it’s about you. Following are some of the many ways Blueprint for Health is played out through the everyday lives of our members.

In the nick of time
At a health fair sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, tests showed a gentleman had a very high fasting blood glucose level of 344, blood pressure of 102/92 and total cholesterol of 268. He was overweight with a body mass index at a high 35.6. He thought he was “pretty healthy.”

“The nurse told me I needed to see a doctor that day or I could wait and see one when the ambulance delivered me to the hospital over the weekend. Needless to say, this got my attention,” he says. The nurse called a doctor who saw him that morning. This gentleman got the treatment he needed and was put on a diet and exercise program. “I have lost 50 pounds and feel 20 years younger,” he says.

Stretching health care dollars
A member called customer service about a bill she received from her chiropractor. The customer advocate explained that Medicare’s chiropractic coverage extends only to treatment by means of manual manipulation of the spine to correct a subluxation (when one or more of the bones of the spine move out of position)—no other services are covered.

The member was surprised to learn she could save up to 25 percent on the cost of chiropractic services that aren’t covered by Medicare with our health-related discount program, BlueComplements. Members receive the program at no cost. She also was happy to learn she could save on many other products and services, such as acupuncture, that Medicare does not cover at all.

Going the extra mile
An elderly widower who came home from the hospital after surgery needed help cleaning his house.

He called Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida. The customer advocate explained that Medicare did not cover housecleaning. But she didn’t leave it at that. The member couldn’t afford to pay for a housecleaning service, so the customer advocate called the member’s local chamber of commerce and found a volunteer organization to provide the service for free.