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GREAT-WEST HEALTHCARE’S MEMBER INFORMATION PROGRAM EARNS NATIONAL ACCOLADE
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo., Oct. 31, 2005 — Great-West Healthcare, a national employee benefits provider, today announced that its Driver’s Ed – Roadmap to Smarter Health Care ChoicesSM program was selected as a winner in the 12th Annual National Health Information Awards, which recognizes the nation’s best consumer health information programs and materials.
The program received a bronze award in the top health information program for consumer decision making information category. Chosen from more than 1,000 entries, the Driver’s Ed program launched in August 2004 and teaches employees the cost of employer-sponsored health care and how they can help control those costs. Just like teaching teens the rules of the road before putting them behind the wheel of a car, Driver's Ed teaches employees how to stay healthier; it emphasizes the value of their health care plan and can help turn them into smarter health care consumers.
“Great-West Healthcare is honored by this award,” said John Aberg, assistant vice president of marketing at Great-West Healthcare. “We believe that the Driver’s Ed program is much-needed in view of our recent consumer survey showing consumers neither know the actual cost of care nor feel they can help contain costs. Driver’s Ed takes aim at these issues, providing employees with the knowledge and wherewithal to make a difference.”
The consumer attitudes survey commissioned by Great-West Healthcare showed that people in employer-sponsored health plans are able to guess the price of a Honda Accord within 1 percent but are off by 57 percent on the cost of a four-day hospital stay. Even more surprising was that 63 percent do not know treatment costs until their medical bills arrives, and 10 percent never learn the price of their treatments.
Great-West Healthcare delivers the Driver’s Ed program electronically at no additional charge to its more than 5,000 employer customers and provides four ready-to-use resources:
- The Driver’s Seat – a member newsletter that can be printed or electronically forwarded to employees;
- Posters that can be printed and displayed at workstations and in common areas;
- Inserts that can be enclosed in each member’s payroll envelope; and
- A link to a Web site where plan administrators retrieve current and past newsletters. Each edition of The Driver’s Seat covers three topics: the true cost of health care, how consumer decisions help control costs and how members can save money.
The 12th Annual National Health Information Awards are coordinated by the Health Information Resource Center, a national private sector clearinghouse for consumer health information programs and materials. Judging was done by a national panel of health information experts. Each entry was evaluated for health information content, creativity and overall excellence. The scores were totaled and averaged, and gold, silver, bronze and merit certificates awarded on the basis of these average scores.
About Great-West Healthcare
Great-West Healthcare, a division of Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, is a national employee benefits provider with expertise in self-funding and health care management solutions. Nationally, the division operates a health care network that includes more than more than 4,200 hospitals and 530,000 providers and provides health care coverage to nearly 2 million people. Visit www.greatwesthealthcare.com for more information.
Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, headquartered in metro-Denver, serves its customers through a full range of health care plans, life and disability insurance, annuities, and retirement savings products and services. It is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Great-West Lifeco Inc. and a member of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies. Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company is not licensed to do business in New York. Products are sold in New York by its subsidiary First Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Company, White Plains, N.Y.
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