Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan today announced that it is now the sole owner of NASCO, a provider of innovative health care technology for leading Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans across the nation.
NASCO, known in the healthcare IT industry for its core administrative processing solutions, was previously owned by six BCBS health plans, including BCBSM.
“BCBSM has long been investing in new technologies and different ways of working to deliver solutions to the health care ecosystem of the future. This change demonstrates our commitment to this work now and into the future,” said Daniel J. Loepp, president and CEO of BCBSM.
“These capabilities will be leveraged to support NASCO’s development of a greater suite of products to address a system that is becoming more digital. We look forward to working with more plans as we continue to build on its success.”
NASCO offers more than 10 technology-based services to Blue plans across several lines of business. Serving nearly 22 million Blue Cross Blue Shield health plan members, NASCO’s core product offerings include membership management, claims processing, customer servicing and billing. In addition, the company also offers products for next best action, benefit lookup, appeals and grievances, and provider data management.
“The future of health care will be advanced by the speed at which companies can pivot, adopt new solutions or integrate with existing solutions to keep up with the rapidly changing and increasingly complex healthcare market,” said John Ladaga, president and CEO of NASCO.
“NASCO products have evolved far beyond claims administration and are now deeply integrated into our Blue plan customers’ operations and strategic initiatives. The existing owner plans agreed that it was time to make a significant change in order to accelerate our digital evolution and expand our product offerings.”
BCBSM has had a minority ownership interest in NASCO since the company’s inception in 1987, and was the first Blue plan to process national account business on the NASCO platform.
Through the years, NASCO has had a strong partnership with BCBSM, providing claims processing and other services for approximately 4 million BCBSM commercial members (nearly three-fourths of BCBSM’s total membership) across a wide range of the health plan’s business.
Additionally, NASCO supports all BCBSM lines of business through various non-claims products, such as customer servicing, customer advocacy, membership, enrollment and billing.
BCBSM sought complete ownership interest in NASCO to further enable the health plan’s business strategy and to ensure the stability and longevity of NASCO’s core products through a more focused product investment strategy.
“BCBSM has had a decades-long business partnership with NASCO, and this is a natural progression to further innovate and add scale,” said Bill Fandrich, senior vice president and chief information officer at BCBSM. “We are excited about this stronger partnership with NASCO. Together, we will bring unprecedented market capabilities beyond anything we are providing independently today.”
