Improving Healthcare Affordability for Hoosiers

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 Indiana. Affordability equals access, and access 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.

What We’re Doing to Improve Healthcare Affordability in Indiana

 

 

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

 

  • 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.
  • Partnering with Indiana’s health systems to lower hospital costs. Our collaborative approach to negotiating hospital payment rates has achieved significant cost reductions—not just moderating cost increases, but meaningfully lowering costs for care.
  • Implementing value-based care models with physicians so they are paid for the quality of care they deliver, not the number of services they provide. These agreements, now in place with nearly every large Indiana health system, have proven to lower overall cost trends and promote stronger health outcomes for members.
  • Strategically investing in primary care providers and specialists, meaning increasing payment rates for doctors to improve access to preventive care and chronic disease management. The old axiom that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure has never been truer. By investing in attracting and retaining world-class physicians to Indiana, we can improve the health status of our communities and reduce the need for costly care.
  • Giving members (in certain plans) rewards through programs like SmartShopper when they use our tools to compare prices.
  • Leveraging new technologies 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 access to 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 conditions and substance use disorder.

 

 

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