SAS®: Mission Critical for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey

Health insurer saves more than $500,000 the first year; achieves return on SAS® investment in just three months

CARY, NC  (Oct. 12, 2009)  –  Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey (Horizon BCBSNJ) customers are demanding increasingly sophisticated information to manage expenses. To meet the challenging requests, Horizon BCBSNJ turned to SAS, the leader in business analytics, to create utilization and disease management dashboards for its major clients. Using SAS Enterprise BI Server, the health insurer pulls data from multiple sources and creates reports automatically.

Prior to SAS, it took one person two weeks every month to create disease-management utilization reports for each large customer. Just three months after installing SAS, the Informatics Group was delivering automated 14-page disease management and health reports for major customers. 

Other important time and money savings:

• A data file consolidation process eliminates 720 hours a year in data reconciliation efforts.
• A simple means of converting existing SAS programs to stored processes speeds information delivery, saving 3,600 hours of work per year.
• The ability to store data in pre-defined OLAP (on-line analytical processing) cubes allows users to access standardized data more quickly for trend reports. This saves 2,304 hours of work a year.
• An intuitive user interface enables Horizon BCBSNJ to produce analytic reports with less training, gaining 400 hours of productivity.
• Microsoft plug-ins and Web delivery support faster communications between the SAS platform and the end user, resulting in savings of 1,199 hours of work a year. 

More importantly, the data is more reliable and more readily available internally. 

“Our executives see this consolidated and easy-to-understand data as a huge benefit,” said Mike Occhipinti, Manager of Informatics at Horizon BCBSNJ. “Our internal customers love that they can log on and view a customized up-to-date dashboard in 30 seconds or less.” 

“The business analytics supplied by the Informatics Group support 70 major corporate projects. Achieving 5 percent more value for just one project can be worth millions. SAS has become absolutely mission critical,’’ added Occhipinti. 

About Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the state’s oldest and largest health insurer, is a not-for-profit health services corporation.  Horizon BCBSNJ serves over 3.6 million members and is headquartered in Newark with offices in Wall, Mt. Laurel, and West Trenton. 

Horizon BCBSNJ provides a wide variety of health and dental insurance products and services, including Medicare and Medicaid products, for businesses and individuals.  Horizon BCBSNJ is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.  Learn more at www.HorizonBlue.com

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