What Are Blue Cross and Blue Shield ?

Blue Cross and Blue Shield is a group of about 39 organizations that take care of health insurance for residents of the United States. Before 1982 the two were separate and now they operate hand in hand. When they were two separate entities, Blue Cross took care of hospital infrastructure and other requirements whereas Blue Shield looked after the physician part of it. With humble beginnings of providing healthcare to teachers for a 21 -day period for $6 a year today the organization extends excellent quality of healthcare to numerous Americans.

Headquartered at Chicago, Blue Cross and Blue Shield is considered to be the best of its kind in the entire health insurance sector. There are various programs conducted by the association, nationwide. Some of these are BlueWorks, which is a program developed to appreciate and reward the various initiatives and programs taken up by the insurance companies coming under the association. The Federal Employee program monitors the health benefits for the federal employees. apart from this, there are many such programs for both government employees as well as general public.

Some progressive initiatives taken up by the association are Anti-fraud initiatives, BlueCard® and BlueCard® Worldwide and Medical cost reference guide. A serious concern for this industry is the money being diverted to an illegal person or agency. Such fraudulent cases are being taken very seriously and the aim of this initiative is to curb any such trends. The services provided by the association are extended to all its members who are either traveling or are temporarily staying out of their previous residence but falling within the association's service limits. Medical cost reference guide is a handy online tool to help members carry out some search on the existing benefits and facilities being made available by the healthcare industry as such.

The plan finder helps you to find the local participating health insurance provider existing in your place of residence. Blue Cross and Blue Shield covers all 50 states of America.

The majority of the hospitals and physicians prefer this association for health insurance coverage than any other. It is registered in close to 170 countries. The contribution of this association to the healthcare industry has been tremendous as they also believe in giving back to the society. This has been done by encouraging corporate entities to invest in America's health and initiating campaigns for screening of heart diseases, reducing infections contracted in hospitals to a great degree, thereby saving a number of hospitals beds.