Product News and What to Expect in the Next 90 Days

TO:                 Agents and Brokers

FROM:           Jared L. Short

DATE:            August 6, 2009

RE:                 Product News and What to Expect in the Next 90 Days

As I return to Oregon and to Regence, I am excited to be part of a company that garners a tremendous amount of respect in the market. My goal is to translate that respect into success with all of our front-end partners.

To help achieve that goal, over the next 90 days I plan to travel throughout our state and meet with as many of our stakeholders as possible. That includes employers, providers, community groups, civic leaders, Regence employees and of course, many of you.

Meeting the needs of our members and forging strong relationships with all of our stakeholders plays a key role in our collective success. To that end, I intend to ensure that my efforts and those of my team are more externally focused. I plan to do a lot of listening over the next 90 days – and beyond – and I hope that each one of you will be part of those candid conversations. You represent a very important perspective in terms of our members, our industry and our company, and I want to hear what you have to say.

During my first few months with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana, I logged more than  40,000 miles traveling throughout the state, and I intend to travel extensively in Oregon as well. I will spend a lot more time out in the field than inside my office, however, I hope you won’t ever hesitate to call me if you have a question, idea or concern.

To that end, from time to time I will invite some of you, our employers, providers and others to come in and share your views with members of our management team. These are informal meetings, but will provide an important forum for helping people across our company better understand how to meet the unique and evolving needs of those we serve.

Finally, underscoring our commitment to listening and acting upon your feedback, I want to share with you an exciting development.

Many of you have expressed the need for us to expand our mental health/chemical dependency benefit, and I am pleased to announce a benefit enhancement for our new platform products in the 2-99 market. Effective January 1, 2010, for new business and renewals, we will waive the deductible for mental health and chemical dependency services; co-insurance will apply.

I want to thank all of you who provided us with feedback regarding this benefit. Please contact your sales representative for additional information about this change.

I look forward to working with all of you to continue serving the needs of our members.

Thank you.

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