Preventive Care

Preventive care is important at any age. It helps identify any health concerns or conditions in the early stages of development, making them easier to control and making any related complications easier to treat.

Preventive Care for Adults
Under both Standard and Basic Option , when you use a Preferred provider, you pay nothing for an annual physical exam, or the tests and services usually included as part of it.

You can also count on Service Benefit Plan coverage to pay for cancer screenings, including colonoscopies to screen for colorectal cancer and mammograms to screen for breast cancer, when you use a Preferred provider.

Immunizations are a large part of maintaining your good health at any age, although most of us think of immunizations for children. When you use a Preferred provider, you pay nothing for shingles vaccines, HPV vaccines, seasonal flu shots, meningococcal vaccines and tetanus-diphtheria boosters, nor for the related office visit.

Certain immunizations are also free at Preferred pharmacies in our vaccine network. Check with your local pharmacy about participating in this network, or call our Retail Pharmacy Program at 1-800-624-5060 to see which local pharmacies provide immunizations.

When you think of how much a physical exam costs, along with all the individual tests, or how much a mammogram costs, you’re saving a lot of money. That’s the value of Blue – great preventive care with no out-of-pocket costs for you when you use a Preferred provider.

Preventive Care for Children
Your Service Benefit Plan coverage is great for keeping your children healthy from the day they are born. We pay for newborn visits and any routine newborn screening procedures that may be necessary. As they grow, we continue to pay for routine exams, immunizations, laboratory tests and other services essential to your children’s health (following the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Affordable Care Act recommendations and guidelines for children up to the age of 22). You pay nothing under both options for preventive child care when you use a Preferred provider. This means you can keep your children healthy and happy while we pay all the costs.

Preventive care for everyone in your family costs nothing out-of-pocket when you use Preferred providers -- it’s just part of the value Blue brings to your health and well-being.

Want to Keep More Money in Your Pocket?
Your budget and pocketbook can take a hit when you need prescription drugs for a one-time illness or to manage a chronic condition. Using generic drugs offers some savings . Under both Standard and Basic Option, your coinsurance and/or copayment amounts for generic drugs are less than that for brand-name drugs.

If you have Standard Option, when you use a Preferred retail or the mail service pharmacy, and your physician agrees to switch your brand-name drugs to generic drugs to generic drugs, you may be able to save even more with the Generic Incentive Program . Under this program, we will waive the coinsurance or copayment amount for the first four prescription fills or refills when you switch from certain brand-name drugs to specific generic drugs. Your savings can add up when you use this Program — the average savings under the Generic Incentive Program is $30 to $60 per prescription fill or refill. For more about the Generic Incentive Program, see section 5(f) in the 2012 Service Benefit Plan brochure.

Page last updated: January 03, 2012