Cambia Health Solutions is a
nonprofit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
health care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
company based in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
.
It is the parent company of Regence, a member of the
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBS, BCBSA) is a federation, or supraorganization, of, in 2022, 34 independent and locally operated BCBSA companies that provide health insurance in the United States to more than 106 million people. It was f ...
operating in
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
,
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
,
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
, and
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
; Asuris Northwest Health; BridgeSpan Health; and LifeMap.
Prior to November 2013, Cambia was known as The Regence Group.
Cambia is the parent company or a minority investor in more than 20 companies in the U.S.
History
Cambia began in the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
as Pierce County Medical Bureau in 1917, when timber workers decided to pool their wages together in case one of them experienced injury or sickness. Cambia's predecessor company was formed by a series of mergers in the 1990s to create a "regional alliance" (Regence) of nonprofit health plans that would be substantial enough to continue operating in its historical service areas as national for-profit insurers entered the market.
In the Pacific Northwest, there were approximately 30 health plans in 1997 and by 2002 there were 20. Activity increased when
Thurston County Medical Bureau merged with
King County
King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...
Medical Bureau, and increased more when
Pierce County Medical Bureau and King County Medical Bureau merged with the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon (which had themselves merged in 1983), to form The Benchmark Group in 1995 with Richard Woolworth as CEO. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Utah joined in 1996, and Blue Shield of Idaho joined shortly thereafter, under an administrative services agreement that allowed BSI to remain owned by its members as a mutual insurance company, but have Regence handle the management.
Skagit County
Skagit County is a county in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2020 census, the population was 129,523. The county seat and largest city is Mount Vernon. The county was formed in 1883 from Whatcom County and is named for the Skagit Ind ...
Medical Bureau and
Whatcom County
Whatcom County is a county located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Washington, bordered by the Canadian Lower Mainland (the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley Regional Districts of British Columbia) to the north, Okanogan Cou ...
Medical Bureau merged in 1998, as part of the unaligned movement, to form Northwest Washington Medical Bureau. In 2001, Northwest Washington Medical Bureau merged with Regence. In 2003, Richard Woolworth retired, and Mark Ganz became CEO and president,
through 2020, until retiring from the company.
In 2017, Cambia commemorated its 100-year birthday by giving all employees four hours of paid volunteer time and a 50 percent match of all of their individual charitable giving during August.
That year, according to Cambia, the company had approximately 5,000 employees serving six health plans in four states, providing
insurance
Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...
to more than 2.6 million people.
In 2018, the company appointed its first Chief
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
Officer, Faraz Shafiq, to lead its data science and A.I. activity.
On March 12, 2019, Cambia and
Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina announced a strategic affiliation, which was subsequently cancelled, due to Blue Cross Blue Shield NC management issues, followed by the retirement of Cambia CEO Ganz.
Cambia Grove
In 2015, Cambia Health Solutions founded Cambia Grove, a health care innovation hub. According to the company, Cambia Grove was created as part of their ongoing innovation strategy. The hub focuses on supporting health care startups through the creation of a startup census, a database of health care startups in Washington State that includes 468 health startups in Washington state, 305 in the
life sciences
This list of life sciences comprises the branches of science that involve the scientific study of life – such as microorganisms, plants, and animals including human beings. This science is one of the two major branches of natural science, the ...
area, and a number of companies in the digital health, health IT, and health care services.
Philanthropy
In 2007, the Cambia Health Foundation, Cambia's
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
, was founded as a grant-making organization focusing on investments in the areas of
palliative care
Palliative care (derived from the Latin root , or 'to cloak') is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Wit ...
, health care transformation, and children's behavioral health. The company's regional health plans launched their own comprehensive palliative care benefits program in June 2014. Since 2009, the Cambia Health Foundation invested more than $30 million to advance palliative care awareness, access and quality.
The foundation's investments include Sojourns, a program focused on developing, planning and implementing hospital-based palliative care programs in the Pacific Northwest. In 2014, the Cambia Health Foundation created the Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program to promote the next generation of palliative care leaders by investing in their projects and professional development. Selected scholars each receive a two-year, $180,000 grant to conduct innovative and effective clinical, research, education, or policy project and to develop and implement a personal leadership development plan. In addition, an Advisory Board member mentors each scholar. As of June 2017, the Sojourns Scholar Leadership Program has approved four cohorts, each consisting of 40 leaders in the field (10 each year), and given out a total of $7.2 million in grants.
Investments
Cambia Health Solution invests in non-insurance health care technology and service companies such as
GNS Healthcare,
Qliance Qliance Medical Group was a direct primary care healthcare business based in Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it ...
, and
True Link
True most commonly refers to truth, the state of being in congruence with fact or reality.
True may also refer to:
Places
* True, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States
* True, Wisconsin, a town in the United States
* Tr ...
. Most of these investments are through their investment arm, Echo Health Ventures.
In 2016 Cambia Health and the investment arm of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, Mosaic Health Solutions, combined to form the investment entity Echo Health Ventures.
According to Echo Health Ventures, their goal is to deploy capital to health care companies with a consumer-centric focus. Cambia Health Solutions has also made investments in digital health companies such as TytoCare, MDsave, Maxwell Health, Wildflower Health, PokitDok and ClearCare. It has launched companies including HealthSparq, OmedaRx, LifeMap, SpendWell, Hubbub Health
and Wellero, a mobile health payment app startup launched in late 2013 then shuttered in January 2016.
In 2016, HealthSparq and SpendWell Health joined under the HealthSparq brand to offer a health care
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
platform that would allow members to comparison shop for health care and purchase medical appointments.
Executive compensation
Regence's president, Mark Ganz, earned $897,671 from Regence BlueShield in Washington in 2008, including a bonus of $550,548. In Oregon, his compensation package totaled $872,665. In both states, Ganz brought home $1,770,336. The other high ranking Regence officials with six-figure salaries included Mohandas Nair, executive vice president and chief marketing executive, who earned $356,681 from Washington, and $295,140 from Oregon for a total of $651,821. Regence's treasurer, Steve Hooker, treasurer, who's announced his retirement, earned $337,543 from Washington and $304,641 in Oregon for a total of $642,184. William Barr, executive vice president of operations, took home $430,926 from Washington, and $377,119 from Oregon for a total of $808,045. And, Kerry Barnett, executive vice president of Regence's corporate division, earned $312,482 from Washington and $302,990 in Oregon for a total of $615,472.
Regulation, investigations and lawsuits
The
Seattle Times
''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...
published an article on February 8, 2012 alleging that non-profit insurance outfits, including Regence BlueShield, are stockpiling billions of dollars in reserves while simultaneously increasing their rates.
In 2014, a class lawsuit was filed challenging the corporations' nonprofit status, and it was dismissed with prejudice.
In 2016, Washington State levied $750,000 in fines against Cambia in response to Asuris Northwest Health and Regence BlueShield policyholder complaints of 2010 and 2011.
In January 2021, as the parent company of Regence BlueShield, Asuris Northwest Health and Commencement Bay Risk Management Insurance Co.; Cambia was fined $10,000 by Washington State for continuing its application to merge with Blue Cross BlueShield NC (BCBSNC), without filing required notification that Dr.
Patrick H. Conway, slated as CEO of the merged company, had undergone a felony arrest while driving, and later resigned from BCBSNC.
"Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina failed to report arrest of CEO"
Office of the Insurance Commissioner Washington State; January 14, 2021
References
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Financial services companies established in 1996
Companies based in Portland, Oregon
Healthcare in Portland, Oregon
Economy of the Northwestern United States
Pharmacy benefit management companies based in the United States
American companies established in 1996
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1996 establishments in Oregon
Health insurance companies of the United States
Members of Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
Medical and health organizations based in Oregon