Quality Blue Primary Care

Quality Blue Primary Care

In 2013, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana launched Quality Blue Primary Care (QBPC), a population health and quality improvement program. Blue Cross is the only commercial health insurance company in Louisiana to offer this type of program. In its first year, QBPC has already been embraced by providers around the state, with 450 primary care physicians participating, and early results show the program is already making an impact on chronic disease management.

Blue Cross developed QBPC based on the value-based approach that when health quality outcomes are improved, especially for patients who have chronic conditions, healthcare expenses are reduced. QBPC is a more extensive collaboration between Blue Cross and primary care physicians in the insurer’s networks than has ever existed previously. But, similar population health programs and a coordinated care approach have successful track records of improving patients’ health outcomes and reducing healthcare costs in numerous public and private healthcare programs.

QBPC is based on a successful population health model that Blue Cross of North Dakota developed, which showed positive results in a fairly short period of time. At least 11 other Blue plans are using successful care coordination-type programs to drive better patient health outcomes. And, QBPC built on the success of previous quality improvement programs and interventions the Blue Cross Clinical Affairs staff had implemented. QBPC’s creation and development are grounded in proven care coordination programs and a quality improvement program foundation demonstrated by Blue Cross and several other Blue plans.

This white paper is an overview of the first year of QBPC – the problems Blue Cross was trying to solve, why QBPC was developed as the solution to solve them, how the program was implemented and the ways success will be achieved and measured in subsequent years.