When I was a young boy growing up in Morgan City in the 1960s, there was an event I really looked forward to every year. My dad (the Straight Talk founder) worked for an oil company, and every year they would host a company picnic. Two picnics in a row, actually, since most of their workers were offshore seven days, then home seven days. The double picnics gave everyone a chance to attend. So on consecutive Saturdays in May, the company would have picnics, and I got to go to BOTH of them!
I looked forward to the picnics all year. They really did it up right! Carnival rides, bouncy houses, tours of the huge offshore workboats, helicopter rides and food … so, so much food! They had cotton candy machines and snowball stands. They had these giant charcoal grills that seemed to stretch on for miles cooking chicken and burgers and a separate grill just for what I still think are the best hot dogs ever made. And guess what? It was ALL YOU CAN EAT for free!!!
Talk about an 8-year-old’s heaven!
One year on picnic day, I was getting ready to go (so excited!) and planning out everything I wanted to do or eat (for free) that day. First things first, I HAD to have a hot dog to get my day off on the right foot. But on this particular day when I got there, with my mouth set on a free hot dog, I learned to my dismay that they were all gone. We had arrived too late, and they had all been eaten. Crushed I was, so disappointed, and a bit angry too! My dad, as usual, leaned in and said, “Look son, just because you want something doesn’t mean they won’t run out! We don’t always get what we want just because we made it in the door.”
I was, of course, in no danger of starving to death, but it was a hard lesson, one that still resonates with me today in my work at Louisiana Blue. When we have a medical need, especially if we have insurance, we assume that there will be a seat for us with the doctor of our choice. And plenty more great options even if there isn’t.
A Seat At (On?) the Examination Table
But who guarantees that access for you? Do we take it for granted (like I did with those free hot dogs at the picnic)? Sadly, millions of Americans have health insurance but still don’t have timely access to quality healthcare. This can often be because their health plans have very limited network coverage, or the in-network healthcare providers who offer the services they need are far away from where they live or work.
Here at your Louisiana Blue Plan, we take giving you access to top doctors, providers and healthcare facilities very seriously. That’s why we have ongoing contracts and relationships with more than 34,000 healthcare providers statewide. Nine out of 10 Louisiana doctors and 99% of the acute-care hospitals in the state are in our Louisiana Blue networks.
Our work to form broad, deep partnerships with the healthcare providers in our state gives you, our customers, the “seats” when you need timely access to care. It’s frankly a lot of work to keep all this medical capability and capacity “in-network” for you, but it is the core of our business. After all, when we make the effort to work closely with our network providers, it drives better health outcomes and keeps costs in line for the customers we have in common—YOU, our member and their patient.
When I think about what your Louisiana Blue Plan is really selling, what our value proposition really is to our members, I think about this statement:
“We are here to provide you timely access to medical care you would struggle to afford out of your own pocket. To take the worries of debilitating costs and long waits for care away as best we can.”
Louisiana Blue, Recommended by Doctors
As part of that ongoing process, we need to be well plugged into what our healthcare providers need and think of us. Every year, we undertake a massive survey effort to allow as many of our contracted providers that we can reach tell us what they think, how we are doing, and what we could do better.
In the fall of 2024 we completed one of those annual surveys, and the results were incredibly encouraging.
To put it as simply as I can, our providers told us that they want to do business with Louisiana Blue above all other carriers. Around 94% of them said Louisiana Blue is their first choice when they think of all the insurance companies their patients could use.
Think about that for a minute.
Our Louisiana Blue Plan is small by commercial standards. Here in Louisiana, our competitors are companies that earn more than $100 billion in annual revenue (some are earning over $300 billion!), making them at least 20 TIMES our size. And yet healthcare providers are happiest when you show up and present a Louisiana Blue card!
That means when these docs look over the seats in their waiting rooms that could be occupied by pretty much anyone, they are happiest when the seats are full of Louisiana Blue card-holding people. People like you and me.
Not one of the giant’s cards. A Louisiana Blue card. The card most preferred by your own doctors, and their staffs as well.
That’s a strong statement, and one that literally gets me right out of bed in the morning. It shows you don’t have to be a giant company to be excellent at what you do. And you can be assured that we will continue working hard to make sure that your providers are happy to see you.
I’ve shared before about our efforts to use technology to improve the care experience for patients and providers and how we’re trying to make administrative work easier for the providers in our networks. We also have programs to reimburse providers more for keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital, and we’re making it easier for them to refer eligible patients to our in-house team of health coaches, who can work with them to stick to their providers’ treatment plans. We want to support our providers so they can do what they do best—treat their patients—and we can continue being their top choice of Louisiana health insurers to do business with.
The Straight Talk is, the people who manage our health and watch out for us every single day here in Louisiana strongly prefer when we have a Louisiana Blue card in our wallet. And making sure we’re working every day to collaborate with our providers, make it easier for them to do business with us and share information that gives you—the patient/member—the best care experience is the best way I know for us to continue protecting your access to healthcare.
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