Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Why We Invest in Health Care Companies
HubX – Life Sciences
January 2016
We invest in health care companies to drive innovation, solve real problems, expand our knowledge, and improve services for our stakeholders. Often, our investments involve other Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans or channel partners to gain scale, reduce duplication and accelerate the development of new innovations.
For example, our investment in a behavioral health company – along with four other Blues plans – has helped to grow their revenue from $35M to $85M (130%) in four years.
Additionally, we have expanded our relationship with the company to begin transforming primary care from treating physical and behavioral health conditions separately, to a single model that cares for the whole person. Our integrated model aims to simultaneously treat physical and behavioral health conditions associated with complex disease processes. This results in improved health outcomes, reduced costs and greater patient satisfaction.
As a second example, we’re partnering with four large health care delivery systems to collectively invest and grow the services and technology needed to succeed in the new health care environment. By pooling our resources and talent, we’re immediately reducing service duplication and focusing on the best and most innovative capabilities to improve patient care and reduce costs. http://amppob.com/5-state-health-organizations-partnering-to-promote-quality-care/
Our diversified ventures and investments are accomplished through a wholly- owned subsidiary, USAble Corporation, which allows us to invest in opportunities across the United States. We develop and fund investments that meet alignment criteria, offer expansion and revenue opportunities, and allow us to leverage our existing and future strengths.
We take each potential opportunity through a process to clearly define value, understand the R&D and prototyping scope, and determine the capital requirements to scale the opportunity into the market.
Currently, our investments are focused in these areas:
- Health care analytics
- Medical practice and revenue cycle management
- Behavioral health
- Primary Care transformation
- Advanced tele-health solutions
- Digital health and patient engagement
- Genomics and personalized medicine
- Kidney health and upstream disease management
- Digital product distribution platforms
- Web-based consumer sales and enrollment solutions
- Shared services alliances
We are searching for early stage and emerging growth companies in health care and consumer services that can complement our strategies and provide investment opportunities for growth in the areas mentioned above, as well as areas that we have yet to consider.
We believe our collaboration with Baptist Health and the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub on HubX-LifeSciences (www.hubx.bix) will produce excellent results and generate new opportunities for follow-on investment.
If you have questions, please contact Steve Abell at [email protected].