NOW & NEXT
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Blue KC Launches Exchange Marketplace
Posted by Meers on Tuesday | December 20th, 2011
Last month, Blue KC announced the launch of the region’s first private insurance Exchange marketplace. During this first phase, Blue KC specifically designed their Exchange to help small businesses manage their healthcare costs, while increasing choice and affordability for employees of small businesses. The Exchange is also available for individuals with Direct Pay health plans, with plans in the future to expand to a large group exchange.
BlueKCExchange.com offers the ease and convenience of an online shopping experience, with the enhanced ability to compare rates of up to ten different health plans available through the Exchange. “By offering the Blue KC Exchange to small business employers now, we are bringing cost control and convenience to these businesses two years in advance of what the government may bring in 2014. In addition, they can be confident that they’ll be working with a company they already know and trust – Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City,” said Danette Wilson, Group Executive, External Operations Group at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City.
The Blue KC Exchange is built upon a relatively new model of administering benefit plans for employees – a defined-contribution model – and allows an employer to set the amount it is willing to pay for each employee’s health benefits, while still offering greater choice in plans to the employees. According to the 2011 Chief Human Resource Officer Survey, conducted by the HR Policy Association, 36 percent of human resources officers in top companies plan to give “serious consideration” to moving to a defined-contribution strategy within the next 10 years.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City has offered a defined-contribution product, Blue Choice, to Kansas City small businesses since 2009. With the move to the Blue KC Exchange, the number of health plans offered to consumers has increased substantially, providing even more health plan options to small business employees and individuals.
Blue KC’s new Exchange further strengthens the company’s relationship with its brokers, confirming that brokers play a major role in the Exchange moving forward.
“Another bold move in the right direction from Blue KC,” explains Matt Krull, Benefits Consultant, with CBIZ Benefits and Insurance Services. “The Blue KC Exchange is an innovative new way for employers to purchase health insurance. We are glad to see Blue KC bring this solution to businesses in this market. The initial reception from my clients has been very positive.”
“Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City is once again leading the market when it comes to bringing innovative products and programs to the Kansas City region,” said Duncan McInnes, with the McInnes Group, an employee benefits consulting firm. “My team vetted this defined contribution approach, along with the multiple plan design platform, with several of our clients as part of a pre-launch discovery process, and we found that virtually 100 percent of them endorsed the Blue KC Exchange.”
The company hopes to make the Blue KC Exchange available to other customer segments later in 2012.