Addressing Healthcare Affordability in Connecticut

Delivering Better Health Through Affordable Care

At Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, we’re committed to advancing access to affordable care for our members in Connecticut. Affordability is central to improving health outcomes and creating a better member experience where people can get the care they need when they need it.

What’s Driving Costs

 

There are many factors driving up costs, which have a ripple effect across families, businesses and communities. Some of the biggest factors include: 

 

• Aging population: More older adults needing more complex and costly care. 
• Chronic conditions: Obesity, diabetes, and heart disease are becoming more common and therefore more expensive. 
• Drug costs: Prices of existing drugs and specialty drugs increase at rates faster than inflation, and new drugs start at record-high prices. 
• Provider consolidation: When healthcare providers merge, it often leads to higher prices and fewer choices. 
• Fraud, waste, and abuse: The complexity of our system makes it easier to abuse. 
• Legislation: Recent federal and state changes continue to mean added costs in the system, year after year. 

 

Given the complex nature of healthcare costs, we’re focused on solutions that go beyond traditional cost control measures.

 

See our recent articles in the Fairfield County Business Journal and the Hartford Business Journal about what we're doing, and keep reading below.

What We’re Doing to Improve Healthcare Affordability

 

 

Here are some of the things that Anthem is doing today to make healthcare more affordable in Connecticut:

 

  • Helping seniors manage complex care so they avoid unnecessary hospital stays. 
  • Better chronic condition management to help members keep their disease and costs in check
  • Negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs, especially expensive specialty drugs. We also offer a unique drug list that focuses on chronic condition drugs with no cost shares, making them more accessible to members.
  • Working with providers to pay them based on the quality of care they deliver, not the number of services they provide. In fact, 65 percent of what we spend on medical care in Connecticut goes toward these value-based care programs that reward quality care and better health results.
  • Encouraging members to get the right care, at the right place, at the right time and save the emergency room for truly emergent needs. We incentivize members to get their annual preventive/wellness exam to catch health issues early. We also partner with Vera Whole Health to offer members access to advanced primary care in the greater Hartford region, providing whole-person care in a primary care setting.
  • Engaging members with tools and corresponding incentives to choose the highest quality and most affordable providers through our portfolio of alternative health plan solutions (Guided Advantage, Clear Choice, and Anthem powered by Coupe Health).
  • Creating customized, integrated solutions that help employers save on healthcare costs while improving care for their employees.
  • Using AI to detect potentially fraudulent activity and improper claims. 
  • Advocating for policies at both the state and federal levels that support affordability and access. 

Investing in Our Communities

 

We also work with nonprofit organizations and other stakeholders throughout the state to address social drivers of health – the non-clinical factors such as nutritious food, safe housing, reliable transportation, and financial support that impact one’s overall well-being. Through the Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation, we invest in organizations working to improve maternal and infant health outcomes, address food insecurity, and support treatment for mental health illnesses and substance use disorder, such as Count the Kicks, Wholesome Wave, and the Governor’s Prevention Partnership.

 

Working together with policymakers, healthcare providers, and employers, we are on a mission to make healthcare more affordable, accessible, and effective for everyone in Connecticut.