Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida Gets It

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida have a great culture in a tough business.This morning I had the pleasure of delivering a keynote speech on leadership, inclusiveness and diversity to a group of 500 leaders at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida in Jacksonville, Florida.

This is the 7th year in a row they have presented a week of various diversity meetings and training for their associates on how to deliver better more personalized service to their  members and how to create an inclusive environment. I had a chance to speak with several managers and executives while I was there.

 By now I have become a pretty good judge of the real thing. All of the managers including  both the COO and CEO were both impressive because they were down to earth and they really do care and want a diverse workforce to take care of their diverse members. These two things go hand in hand. You can not have a great environment of caring for the members if a caring environment does not exist for the workforce.

 Last year  I called Blue Cross and Blue Shield to try to understand how I should proceed with secondary insurance when I went onto Medicare. Even though I was not a member the lady who took my call ( Sherri Clark) was very professional, and explained everything to me. I have a complex issue right now with my insurance as my wife is not 65 and is still on the Disney Cigna plan. Sherri Clark explained exactly what I should do and why I should do it in two year when my wife turns 65. We have all come to not expect great service when we deal with insurance companies but since my experience was so good, I became an advocate of Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Charles who I have coffee with most mornings at Einstein’s at 6:30 AM also tells me frequently what a great job Blue Cross and Blue Shield does for him and his wife.

My whole point here is that your staff is your brand for your organization and they create your reputation for better or worse.

PS: I must also tell you that Cigna Insurance took excellent care of Priscilla and me through Priscilla’s very difficult health issues the last 18 months. We did not experience one problem along the way. If Blue Cross and Blue Shield saw Priscilla’s medical bills they would be very happy that we were not one of their members. Now that Priscilla is healthy we hope they will let us in, in a couple of years. Let’s all pray that our government stays out of trying to run health care companies.and lets the market and competition take care of it with some adjustments for those that just can’t access health care. Our government should stick to trying to manage the defense of our nation and not too much more. Government just does not and can not understand cost management and due diligence in my opinion. When you try to make everyone happy, you don’t make anyone happy and that seems to be what politicans try to do.

I would love to hear from you on your thoughts as I am sure everyone does not agree with all of my comments.