Health Care Service Corporation Named to 'The Civic 50' for Second Consecutive Year

CHICAGO, June 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For the second consecutive year, Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), a mutual legal reserve company and the country's largest customer-owned health insurer, has been recognized as part of the Civic 50. An initiative of Points of Light, the Civic 50 honors companies that create community engagement initiatives that translate good intentions into sound business practices.

"I am proud to share this honor with the more than 22,000 employees who dedicate themselves to improving the lives of our members and local communities," said Paula Steiner, president and CEO, HCSC. "We look forward to continuing our 80-year legacy of caring with measurable, sustainable programs that make a real difference in the lives of those we serve."

HCSC, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield health Plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, was honored for its efforts to improve health and wellness outcomes in its local communities. One of its signature programs, Enhancing Care for Children with Asthma, in collaboration with the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest, leverages HCSC's claims data to identify large populations of high-risk patients with asthma – a top cost-driver – and deliver community-based interventions to those populations by implementing best practices and resources within health clinics to improve the quality of care delivered to individuals with asthma. Through 2015, the project is estimated to have reached more than 350,000 individuals through nearly 90 clinic locations across Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

Initial results from 28 participating clinic locations in Illinois and New Mexico demonstrated a 62 percent decrease in hospitalizations for children diagnosed with asthma and a 54 percent decrease in emergency department visits for the same population. Improving the quality of care translates to better-managed asthma, reduced symptoms and associated costs, in addition to improving the quality of life for those individuals impacted.

Additional HCSC efforts highlighted this year include:

• Healthy Kids, Healthy Families® is the company's signature community initiative and part of its ongoing commitment to the health and well-being of the children and families across its five states. In 2015 alone, HCSC invested more than $7 million to outcomes-based programs with 107 community partnerships, positively impacting more than 3.2 million children in areas of nutrition, physical activity, disease prevention and management, and supporting safe environments.
• Blue Corps^SM is HCSC's employee volunteer program, which promotes and encourages the company's 22,000 employees to donate their time and talents to serve in their local communities. Blue Corps volunteers across HCSC's five states experienced another record-breaking year in 2015, with nearly 6,400 employees participating and logging more than 107,000 volunteer hours to help communities, which generated more than $284,000 in volunteer matching dollars. Those hours translate to a cash equivalent of more than $2.5 million in support to nonprofit partners.

The Civic 50 winners were selected based on four dimensions of their U.S. community engagement programs: investment, integration, institutionalization, and impact. This year's Civic 50 applicants were evaluated and accrued points based on several criteria, including the quantity and impact of financial and human resources applied to civic improvement, whether internal and external resources are activated to maximize community impact, how a company's community engagement activities support its business interests, how broadly community engagement is supported and institutionalized within a company's policies, systems and incentives, and how a company measures the social and business value of its community engagement programs.

The Civic 50 survey was developed in partnership with a high-profile working group of researchers and industry thought leaders. Dozens of corporate advisors provided strategic guidance on the program's objectives, including defining indicators, developing methodology, and identifying partners and participants. As a result of this collaborative process, the initiative reflects leading insight and thinking about how corporations can and should connect with communities in a twenty-first century economy. 

The survey was administered by True Impact, a company specializing in helping organizations maximize and measure their social and business value. The survey instrument consists of quantitative and multiple-choice questions that inform the Civic 50 scoring process. The Civic 50 is the only survey and ranking system that exclusively measures corporate involvement in communities.

To learn more about the Civic 50, to see a full list of the winners and to access the full report, The 2016 Civic 50: Turning Good Intentions into Sound Business Practices, which presents the highlights, trends, benchmarking data and best practices from the 2016 Civic 50, please visit www.Civic50.org. 

About Health Care Service Corporation
Health Care Service Corporation is the country's largest customer-owned health insurer and fourth largest health insurer overall, with more than 15 million members in its Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. A Mutual Legal Reserve Company, HCSC is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more information, please visit www.HCSC.com, visit our Facebook page or follow us at www.twitter.com/HCSC.

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