How to Get the Most From Your HMO Plan

A Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) plan gives you access to a wide variety of doctors and hospitals in the Keystone Health Plan East network. Here’s how to get the most from your plan — and save money, too!

1. Choose a Primary Care Physician (PCP)

You are required to select an in-network PCP, or family doctor,...
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Fighting the Opioid Crisis: Embracing Care and Prevention

Pain management is serious business. Opioid medications — when given in the right dose and for the right length of time — provide significant relief from pain and can drastically improve a person’s quality of life. In recent years, however, our nation has been in the grips of an opioid epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,...
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Family doctor, Urgent Care, or ER?

If you think the ER is the only place to get medical attention quickly, think again. Unless it’s a true emergency, you may want to consider care at a retail clinic, urgent care center, or via telemedicine. It may save you time and money!
You’re cutting an avocado for dinner and you slice your finger. It’s Friday night and your sinuses are so congested, you don’t know how you’ll survive the weekend. Your daughter wakes up Saturday morning with pinkeye. When it’s a true emergency, the decision of where to get medical attention quickly is easy. You either call 911 or you get to the nearest emergency room (ER)....
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Medicare Advantage Users Guide: Getting Started

Whether we’re helping a new Independence Blue Cross Medicare member or a renewing one, my Customer Service team and I always take a few minutes to review the different steps they can take to help ensure they are getting the most from their health plan. For anyone we haven’t had a chance to speak with yet,...
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The Hazards of Hospitalization: Ways to Avoid Preventable Issues and Readmissions

Hospitalization
One of the best advances in medicine over the past 100 years is our ability to provide state-of-the-art technologic procedures and treatments that improve people’s lives and longevity. For some, this requires being admitted to the hospital. You may have the expectation that if you went into the hospital for surgery, a procedure, or treatment, you would improve enough to leave,...
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Looking for Dr. Right?

how to choose your doctor ibx
The IBX Find a Doctor tool helps you find a participating doctor, choose a treatment location, find an urgent care center, and learn about your health care options. Choosing a doctor can be a challenge. For a long time, we depended on word of mouth. If you needed a specialist, a friend would recommend one — and if all else failed there was always The Yellow Pages....
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How Pap Tests Save Lives

Pap Tests
January is Cervical Health Awareness Month and a good time to tip our hats to an innovation in cancer prevention that’s been saving lives since the 1940s: the Pap test. Known also by its less glamorous name, the Pap smear, this innovation allows gynecologists to find pre-cancerous cervical cells. Since they became a standard part of routine gynecological exams,...
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Health Insurance Benefits – Start the New Year Right

Health Insurance Benefits
You know health insurance is important. If you twist your ankle during a morning run, come down with a nasty virus, or end up battling a serious illness or injury, health insurance can help you get the treatment you need affordably. But health insurance benefits can be so much more than that. Not only can you rely on health insurance when you get sick,...
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Independence Blue Cross Discounts and Savings for Members

New to Independence Blue Cross (IBX)? Get to know our member perks: discounts, reimbursements, and personal support that can help you eat well, get fit, save money, and have fun.
Photo Credit: Matt Stanley, courtesy Delaware River Waterfront Corporation New to Independence Blue Cross (IBX)? Get to know our member perks: discounts, reimbursements, and personal support that can help you eat well, get fit, save money, and have fun on the cheap — all while bringing you closer to your health and well-being goals.*

Here are some IBX member perks to take advantage of this year:

Free admission at the Blue Cross RiverRink....
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What You Need to Know About Food and Drug Interactions

Food and Drug Interactions
Despite what Mary Poppins said, a spoonful of sugar may not be the best thing to take your medication with. What you eat and drink can affect the way medications work — and medications can also change the way your body uses certain foods. These food-drug interactions can: Prevent a medicine from working the way it should Cause a side effect from a medicine to get worse Cause a new side effect But it’s not just food — alcohol,...
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