Blue care connections

Kelsey-Seybold and HEB team up

Chiropractic care coverage

Warm and comfortable is best

Employee sports day

Blue Care Connection
HMO Blue Texas’ Blue Care Connection program provides a “total solution” for members by coordinating Medical Care Management Programs. Those programs include Care and Case Management, Disease Management, 24-Hour NurseLine, Special Beginnings and Wellness.

• The Blue Care Connection program includes a Blue Care advisor, who will help you use the management programs. That help includes navigating the health-care system, coordinating benefits, education to make informed decisions, promoting wellness, personal health-risk assessments, using preventive screenings and guidelines, and someone to champion your care when you need it.

• Blue Care Access for Members: At www.bcbstx.com/members, Monday-Friday, 6 a.m.-3 a.m., and Saturday, 6 a.m.- midnight. You can confirm when claims are paid and the payment amounts; request a new ID card; print a temporary ID card; get prescription drug lists; and more. If you have difficulty accessing the Web site, you may call the help desk, (888) 706-0583, Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.

• National Provider Finder: Online list of providers gives you office hours, the languages the provider speaks, hospital affiliations and maps to provider locations. Visit www.bcbstx.com.

• Mayo Clinic: This Web site, www.bcbstx.com/member, provides information about symptoms, treatment options and decision-making tools for more than 250 health conditions. You can use the health-risk assessment to evaluate your health and can also research prescription drugs and their side effects.

• Blue Care Program: You can use your PPO or HMO benefits when you and your family travel or live temporarily in another BCBS service area. Use the number on your ID card or click on National Provider Finder at www.bcbstx.com.

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Kelsey-Seybold & HEB team up
Kelsey-Seybold Clinic has on-site pharmacies at 11 Houston area locations, so you can fill your prescriptions where you see your doctors. Also, Kelsey-Seybold prescriptions can be filled at any Houston area HEB pharmacy. To refill a Kelsey-Seybold prescription online, visit www.kelsey-seybold.com and click Pharmacy Online.

HEB and Kelsey-Seybold pharmacies are electronically joined and HEB’s pharmacies are satellites in the network. If Kelsey-Seybold is your primary health care provider, HEB pharmacies have your prescription history. You may also get Kelsey-Seybold prescriptions filled at any HMO Blue Texas participating pharmacy.

Even if Kelsey-Seybold isn’t your primary provider, you may still get your prescriptions filled at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic or HEB.

At www.kelsey-seybold.com, Kelsey-Seybold has an alphabetical online drug guide that provides information on prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines, including side effects and interactions. The Web site also has maps and driving directions.

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Chiropractic care coverage
The HMO, PPO and Out of Area plans now cover chiropractors who treat structural imbalance or distortion or dislocation that interferes with the central nervous system. The HMO plan does not have an annual benefit limit. The PPO and Out of Area plans have an annual benefit of $1,000 after the deductible. HMO members, except within Kelsey-Seybold, need a referral from their primary care physician.

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Warm and comfortable is best
Hospitals keep operating rooms cold for the doctors and nurses’ comfort as they work under hot lamps. Patients often emerge from the operating room chattering and shivering.

But research reported in the Jewish Herald-Voice shows that patients who are kept warm with heated blankets and adequate coverings before and after surgery are less likely to suffer an infection in their surgical wound. In a study, only 5 percent of surgical patients who were kept warm before and after surgery developed infections, compared with 14 percent of those who went through surgery under the usual chilly conditions.

Cold constricts arteries, decreases immunity and slows blood flow to the skin. Speak up and ask for as many warm blankets as you need.

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Employee sports day
Come join in the fun and participate in Sports Day 2004, Saturday, Oct. 16, from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m., Sunnyside Park, 3502 Bellfort.

You can participate in co-ed tennis, basketball, relay races, softball and volleyball.

To register a team, please contact your department wellness coordinator.

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