HCSC Customer Service Weathers Snowstorm

Pat Hemingway Hall, HCSC, President and CEO, has thanked the countless people across the enterprise for their extraordinary efforts this week, which allowed the organization to continue to meet the needs of members and providers while many offices were closed.

It was an incredible achievement, especially when you consider that the snowstorm was the third-largest in Chicago history and one of the worst Oklahoma has seen.

Chicago received more than 20 inches of snow, while Tulsa had a record 15-plus inches.

The extreme weather even forced the deployment of the Oklahoma National Guard. No one escaped this week's winter weather, as Texas had to overcome difficult icy conditions, and New Mexico had to deal with severe conditions as well.

However, because of the organization's geographic diversity, considerable resources, excellent planning and exceptional employee commitment, they were able to effectively weather the storm this week. For instance:

More than 5,400 customer service calls were routed from closed full service units to open ones on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In total, more than 26,000 member and provider calls were answered on Wednesday alone.

All critical systems were operational, enabling:

- more than 700 customer advocates to answer calls;
- more than 28,000 calls to be handled by the interactive voice response system; and
- 233,000 transactions (for benefits/eligibility and claims status) to be processed.

Despite the loss of power, five major office sites were kept open with back-up generators.

In less than three minutes, the Emergency Notification System was able to send more than 50,000 messages via several methods to ensure that employees were alerted about office status changes.

Thousands of employees were able to work from home with remote access to HCSC systems.

This week has been truly remarkable. Some employees slept overnight in their offices, some worked double shifts, others traveled through very difficult conditions to get to work and everyone pulled together to accomplish whatever needed to be done. 

About HCSC

Health Care Service Corporation is the nation's largest customer-owned health insurer operating Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Info: http://www.HCSC.com.
 

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