« "Technology for Health" now also in Switzerland | EPN - Electronic Prescribing News Home | Henry Ford Medical Group counts e-prescription savings - Computer Business Review »
March 03, 2006
Blue Cross reports higher earnings for 2005
heraldsun.com: printer-friendly story.
Blue Cross reports higher earnings for 2005
By PAUL NOWELL, AP Business Writer
March 3, 2006 12:54 pm
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina earned $167.6 million in 2005, an increase of 7 percent from the previous year, the nonprofit insurer said Friday.
By design, the Chapel Hill-based company has cut its profit margins in recent years, and its 2005 net income represented 4.4 percent of revenue, or less than 5 cents in earnings for every dollar of revenue.
"As other companies in our industry continue to report strong profits, we delivered a reduced net income ratio for the second year in a row, just as we had planned," Dan Glaser, chief financial officer, said in a statement.
Chief executive Bob Greczyn said BCBSNC was committed to taking long-term steps to improve the health of its members and the communities it serves.
"Our company's financial stability has afforded us the opportunity to invest in initiatives for our members and our state that will bear long-term results in moderating health care costs, promoting preventive care, increasing health care access and improving the quality and efficiency of the health care system," he said in a statement. "We believe these kinds of forward-looking investments are important in our role as North Carolina's leading health insurer."
The company launched several initiatives in 2005, including a weight-control program, an electronic prescription program and a generic drug co-payment waiver program.
Claims and medical expenses increased by about $280 million, or 11 percent over 2004, primarily due to medical cost and membership growth, Blue Cross said. Most of the medical cost increases were for professional, outpatient facility and drug expenses.
Operating costs were up by about 17 percent compared to the same period in 2004, due to the continued growth in business. The company hired 540 new employees last year to handle customer needs and it invested in technology and other projects,
Total revenue as of Dec. 31 was nearly $3.8 billion, up 12 percent over 2004. Blue Cross added more than 180,000 members in 2005 and now serves almost 3.3 million people.
Links related to this article:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina: www.bcbsnc.com
URL for this article: http://www.heraldsun.com/state/6-708304.html
© Copyright 2006. All rights reserved. All material on heraldsun.com is copyrighted by The Durham Herald Company and may not be reproduced or redistributed in any medium except as provided in the site's Terms of Use.
Posted by cmayaud at 04:37 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)
Del.icio.us Tagging |
Digg This
| Posted to
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
