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Strong Growth Featured in UPMC Health Plan 2000 Annual Report

Pittsburgh, PA, (April 30, 2001) - Strong growth fueled by access to high quality health care and reasonably-priced insurance products is documented in the UPMC Health Plan 2000 Annual Report. The fourth-fastest growing health maintenance organization in the nation according to the March 2001 issue of "Managed Healthcare Executive," UPMC Health Plan saw its employer client roster grow 190 percent from 1999 to 2000.

"The Health Plan moved into profitability one year ahead of our own projections and two years faster than most other new health insurance companies," writes UPMC Health Plan Chief Executive Officer Patricia A. Liebman in the report's introductory letter.

The report says that several factors contributed to the plan's success including:

• A provider-driven business model which values the special relationship between doctors and their patients and the Health Plan's link to the UPMC Health System, a source of high-quality care for generations of western Pennsylvanians;
  
  
• Fast-growing enrollment in which 85,000 members enrolled in the plan in 2000, a 53 percent increase over 1999, with expected enrollment to reach 300,000 by mid-2001;
  
  
• Reasonable and predictable premium increases that averaged just over six percent the last three years - lower than industry-wide double digit rate hikes; and,
  
  
• Pharmacy costs that dropped 5 percent last year, while nationwide drug costs went up 16 percent.
  
  

UPMC Health Plan provides enhanced-access HMO and other health benefits products to some 295,000 persons. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, the Health Plan is a subsidiary of UPMC Health System, which has 31 merged and affiliated hospitals throughout western Pennsylvania. UPMC Health Plan members are served by some 5000 physicians in partnership with 54 hospitals in 21 western Pennsylvania counties.=

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