Early life and career of Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall
Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall also known as Pat is a world figure and worked for Health Care Service Corporation as the President and as the C.E.O from 2007 to 2015 from when she retired from service. Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) is the largest mutual health insurance company in the country. With over 25 years of experience in health insurance, she has greatly contributed to the growth and development of various health programs. A good, example of such program is Medicare +Choice that stated in 1998 (Health Care Service Corporation 2018).
Her expertise in HIPAA and HITECH afforded her to be the privacy officer in different hospitals and health plans. Prior to joining Health Care Service Corporation, she acted as the Chief Executive Officer and the President of Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Illinois and that of Texas. Blue Cross & Blue Shield is a division of Health Care Service Corporation. While at Illinois, she directed the corporation’s finances, enterprise process management, actuarial and treasury departments, subscriber services, and information technology. In her tenure in Texas where she joined in 1993, she was responsible for all operations in Texas, including major and national accounts, local group markets, health care management, public affairs and individual health products. Other places she has worked include A. Foster Higgins, VHA and Aetna/Partner Health Plans (Acquire Media. 2018). Below is a picture of this hero by the name Patricia Hemingway.
Hemingway Hal was an ICU nurse before moving into health insurance services. This role shaped her views about how the healthcare system should work and that is what helped her climb up the ladder at a faster rate. According to her, every health care system should provide appropriate care to its parents in the most financially sound way so as to foster innovation and improvement. Also, she held a strong belief that it is the healthcare providers and payers who are responsible for improving the care system. As a nurse, she has learned her lesson the hard way where she worked to address the needs of her patients. Hemingway Hall has applied the lessons learned into her role of care management, resource management and as the President and the Chief Operating Officer of Health Care Service Corporation. While at Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Texas, she managed to achieve a financial and membership growth of up to 750,000 members. This allowed the company to improve its market share in the very competitive state, Texas. Her efforts were recognized as the best in general customer satisfaction and as a result, was awarded more than two dozen awards including the ‘Women’s Leadership Award and Partners in Education Award’ (Cross 2014).
Leadership and contributions at Health Care Service Corporation
Hemingway Hall who retired at 62 years was considered one of the most powerful individuals in the health care industry. She possesses great influence in the Chicago-based HCSC. The corporation is the largest non-profit making insurer in Chicago and is mainly concerned with marketing Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance plans in five states. The states include Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, and Oklahoma. Hall was a nurse before joining this corporation. During her leadership, she made significant investments in the Americans health care systems thereby improving the lives of millions of citizens. She also expanded the coverage of the insurance plans to ensure they were accessible to as many people as possible (Chicago Magazine 2014).
Hemingway Hall and HCSC were among the thirteen heavyweight health insurance players that were pulled in during the Obama’s era to help fix the bungled rollout of the federal exchange website. During her time as the president, she attracted the attention of the policymakers because of her influence and experience as far as health care and insurance are concerned. Under her leadership, she founded the Health Care Transformation Task Force which is a collection of insurers, employers, and patients with the aim of improving the level of service delivery in the health care sectors. The task force has committed to moving the healthcare systems through a model that gives fruitful outcomes at an affordable price. The aim was to change the current system where clients pay for every service.
Health Care Service Corporation offers the same license as offered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield. It offers health insurance for employers. During her time, Hemingway Hall led the corporation into public insurance exchange that was facilitated by the Affordable Care Act which was rolled out in 2014. The venture was not very welcome at first and the company lost $282 million as a result of exchange membership. The loss was even more from the Texas subsidiary which lost approximately $400 million while that of Illinois parted with $280 million because of individual policies. For the first time in the history of the corporation, the medical claims significantly outpaced premium revenue (Herman, 2016).
Despite the downside in 2014, in overall, the membership at HCSC grew to approximately 16 million Americans during the reign of Hemingway Hall. She received a number of awards and recognition because of her contribution to the health industry. Hemingway Hall was named among the “50 Hospital and healthcare women leaders” in 2010, “100 most powerful people in healthcare” and ‘top 25 women in healthcare” in the year 2009. She made immense efforts to improve and enhance interaction between members. Her dream was to transition the level of customer service into customer advocacy. With its success, the move changed the view of customer relations and consequently granted the customer more control concerning their health and its associated costs (New York Times 2018).
Achievements and vision for the future
In her tenure, she made major developmental moves aimed at widening the market of the corporation in the future. In her very last years at Health Care Service Corporation, she acquired MEDecision. This is one of the leading health information technology companies in the country. The move was aimed at reducing the health care cost and consequently improving the health outcomes to the patients (Meyer 2014). This put HCSC at the top gear enabling it to be the industry leader as far as wellness and care management is concerned. Looking into the future, Hemingway Hal had a vision of improving the IT infrastructure and thus the acquisition. Such improvement would ensure that the company delivers unparalleled customer’s health data, employers and those of health care providers with great transparency, efficiency and with less time (Deam, 2016).
As far as Health Care Service Corporation is concerned, it is the largest non-profit making insurance company that serves in five states. The company serves over 16 million members and consists of over 16,000 employees. The corporation runs Dearborn National, which includes; Fort Dearborn Life Insurance in New York, Dental Network of America and Colorado Bankers Life insurance Company. The company’s vision is to become the world leader in healthcare insurance. How they achieve this is by doing everything in their power to be with their clients not only at times of sickness but also in health. The major values include respect for all, integrity, commitment to service, excellence and above all, caring for their member (Bloomberg 2018).
Since Hemingway Hall took over Health Care Service Corporation, I believe that she did not only rebrand the company but also developed it to some several strides ahead. With her leadership, the company has grown to become one of the strongest insurance companies in both Chicago and the neighboring states. She is visionary and hardworking. Her career life from an ICU nurse to the president of one of the biggest non-profit making business is encouraging. Indeed, her dream was to transition the level of customer service into customer advocacy.
She stands a hero in the way she tremendously improved the market share in Texas, one of the most competitive states when it comes to health insurance business. To be more specific, she is not moved by fear of entering into new markets. Despite the losses made by the company in 2014, Hemingway Hall does not weaver but continues to make new developments. Indeed, she has a passion for the health care and particularly in the health of fellow Americans. With the strong foundation that she left in 2015, Health Care Service Corporation has every reason to become even better in terms of improving service to their customers. All through her life, it is clear that she strived to better and to do the right thing both for the company’s gain as well as for the benefit of the customer. She demonstrated the highest level of ethical behavior in the company and most importantly, delivered a premium health insurance company in America. I believe she received a number of awards and recognition because of her contribution to the health industry.
References
Acquire Media. (Apr 19, 2018). Celgene Corporation Announces Changes to Its Board of Directors. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://ir.celgene.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1064316
Bloomberg. (June 2018). Patricia Arlene Hemingway Hall; Cardinal Health Inc. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=4865435&privcapId=172207
Chicago Magazine. (2014). 100 Most Powerful Chicagoans 2014; Patricia Hemingway Hall. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2014/power-patricia-hemingway/
Cross, B. (2014). Blue Shield of Illinois, a Division of Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company, an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.© Copyright 2009. Health Care Service Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Legal Disclaimer| Privacy Statement| Code Of Conduct.
Deam, J. (October 8, 2016). Big pay for insurers as premiums rise and plans tighten; Blue Cross ditches ACA plans, rewards execs millions in pay. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/medical/article/Big-pay-for-insurers-as-premiums-rise-and-plans-9957321.php
Health Care Service Corporation. (2018). Living Our Purpose and Core Values. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.hcsc.com/pdf/hcsc_code_conduct.pdf
Health Care Service Corporation. (2018). Who we are. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.hcsc.com/who-we-are
Herman, B. (July 30, 2015). Modern Healthcare; Hemingway Hall to retire as CEO of Health Care Service Corp. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150730/NEWS/150739988
Herman, B. (September 26, 2016). Modern Healthcare; Hemingway Hall to retire as CEO of Health Care Service Corp. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160926/NEWS/160929921
LinkedIn. (2018). Patricia Hall profiles. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Patricia/Hall
Meyer, A. (2014). Crain’s Chicago Business; The 20 Most Powerful Women in Chicago Business 2014. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/most-powerful-women?name=Hall
New York Times. (June 1, 2018). Business Day Markets; Celgene Corporation Announces Changes to Its Board of Directors. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from https://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/news/press_release.asp?docTag=201804190748BIZWIRE_USPRX____BW5707&feedID=600&press_symbol=72762
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