Who we are
As the largest provider of benefits in Alberta, we impact people’s lives for the better. We believe all communities should thrive and are committed to serving as a champion for wellness by supporting the health of our customers and communities.
Download the full Annual Report PDFCorporate address
The theme of our 2022 Annual Report, committed to your wellbeing, could not be more timely. While the unprecedented changes in our world over the last three years have challenged us all at home, at work and in everything we do, for Alberta Blue Cross® it also confirmed our commitment to promoting the wellbeing of our customers and communities.
As the pandemic presented us with opportunities to step up to support our communities, to reconnect at a more human level, to embrace new workstyles and to do things differently, for Alberta Blue Cross® it has also presented us with an opportunity to expand on our commitment to wellness—by embracing a broader opportunity to support the wellbeing of our customers and communities more holistically. This includes not only providing a full suite of benefits to promote all aspects of health, but expanding the role we play by promoting all facets of wellbeing from social connections to supporting employers in applying a broader lens to workplace wellness and growing our involvement in the health ecosystem.
2022 was a particularly exciting year for Alberta Blue Cross® as we embraced this expanded commitment to championing wellbeing. We articulated this commitment through the launch of our refreshed Blue For Life® Vision and a new 10-year Corporate Strategy that positions our customers and communities at the core of everything we do. We saw continued growth across all three of our Group, Government and Individual business units; we continued to expand our involvements in the communities we serve; we advanced our commitments to delivering unparalleled digital and customer experiences for our customers; and we made substantial progress on initiatives to increase our capabilities and our operational efficiencies to ultimately reinforce the value we deliver.
While our Annual Report provides us with the opportunity to share highlights from our organization over the last year, it also provides us with an opportunity to recognize the close and positive relationships with our valued stakeholders that drive our business and without whom our organization would not exist. This includes employer group plan sponsors, brokers and consultants, government program sponsors, health service providers and provider organizations, plan members, vendors and suppliers and our many community partners. We truly appreciate these relationships.
And last but not least, it includes our own team members whose extraordinary commitment to our customers and communities is what truly differentiates Alberta Blue Cross® and personifies our commitment to wellbeing as we assume shared responsibility to fulfilling this vision.
Mark Komlenic
President and Chief Executive Officer
Proud member of the Alberta Blue Cross® team
Marcia Nelson
Chair, Board of Directors
ABC Benefits Corporation
Committed to a strong health care system
Through our close working relationship with the Government of Alberta, we administer a wide range of government-sponsored benefit programs. This partnership continued to grow through 2022 as we expanded our support of government health programs and initiatives.
Advancing home care
In 2022, the Government of Alberta partnered with Alberta Blue Cross® and Alberta Health Services to introduce the Client Directed Home Care program to give Albertans the opportunity to choose their own home care agency or provider and empower those with disabilities and chronic conditions to stay in their homes longer. Our role is to facilitate program administration including client enrolment and direct-billing capabilities with home care agencies.
Supporting the influenza vaccination program
On behalf of the Government of Alberta, we are pleased to manage the claims process for pharmacies administering influenza immunizations. For the 2021 to 2022 influenza season, pharmacists were the primary immunizers, administering an outstanding 74 per cent of the immunizations in Alberta and increasing overall capacity of the health system by freeing up time for other health care professionals.
Enabling continuity of care
The Central Patient Attachment Registry (CPAR) is a provincial system that captures the relationship between health care providers and their patients. In August 2022, CPAR reached a milestone of 1 million paneled patients and is now available in more than 411 clinics across Alberta.
Committed to excellent customer service
Our customers are the central focus of everything we do. We are committed to ensuring every interaction they have with us is positive. Throughout 2022, we continued to ensure our customers felt heard, cared for, understood and valued.
Creating exceptional customer experiences
Excellent customer service is the cornerstone of our commitment to delivering an unparalleled experience to our valued customers. In 2022, we managed 567,141 member inquiries, introduced live interpreter services into our contact centre, received world-class certification and exceeded our targets for provider satisfaction scores.
Enhancing our digital capabilities
In 2022, we created our first digital strategy to accelerate our capabilities in an increasingly digital world. Aiming to be a transformative leader in the health and wellbeing ecosystem, we’re leveraging digital platforms to deliver the personalized support and services our customers want, anytime and anywhere.
Committed to evolving workplaces
Alberta Blue Cross® provides group benefit plans to almost 5,700 employers, ranging from small businesses to many of the largest Alberta-based public and private organizations with employees across Canada.
Expanding our digital solutions
As remote and flexible workstyles increase for employees across industries in the aftermath of the pandemic, we continue to enhance and expand our digital solutions for our group customers and their employees. Through 2022, we continued transitioning our group members to digital ID cards and moved most of our group customers to an online dependent declaration process in October.
Providing life and disability solutions
As a full-service benefit provider, we offer a suite of life and disability products to our customers in conjunction with the Blue Cross Life Insurance Company of Canada®. 2022 was another year of substantial growth in this area, as more employers turned to Alberta Blue Cross® to provide these products to their employees.
World-class, first-call resolution
Our group administrator contact centre finished 2022 at a world-class level for first-call resolution for group plan administrators, as determined by SQM. Scoring 86 per cent for willingness to resolve customer service calls the first time they called in, we exceeded the world-class standard of 80 per cent.
Committed to cultures of wellness
Wellness is integral to the Alberta Blue Cross® brand. We are committed to promoting the health and wellness of our customers and communities by supporting customers to live their best lives. Our customers appreciate our role in their wellness journeys and recognize our leadership in wellness promotion.
Connecting people to digital health solutions
In December 2022, we partnered with Alberta Innovates for a research project to connect people to innovative, digital care solutions with the intent to advance prevention and management of chronic disease and mental health. Through the power of innovation, this strategic partnership will identify applications that help drive solutions for relevant chronic health concerns and reduce the costs to benefit plans.
Healthy food prescription program recruitment
In partnership with the University of Calgary, we are supporting a research study to examine the impact of healthy food subsidies on diabetes management for food-insecure adults living with Type 2 diabetes. Conducted by the University of Calgary, this research study is funded by Alberta Innovates, Alberta Health Services, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Alberta Blue Cross®.
Supporting workplace wellness
In 2022, we launched a mental health toolkit for organizations—a practical guide to develop a mental health and wellness strategy and proactively manage employee health. It simplifies the process of building a mental wellness strategy using steps and contains checklists, resources and case studies.
The Wellness Summit
Our third and first fully digital wellness summit, held from June 27 to 29, embarked on a new experience in collaboration with the National Wellness Institute. Together with international and Canadian wellness experts, we enhanced attendees' learning, connection and growth as we explored opportunities for reinventing workplaces, workstyles and digital health.
Committed to our people
At Alberta Blue Cross®, we recognize that our people are vital to our success. By listening to our team members, we enhance our capabilities and efficiencies, which allow us to continue to serve our customers and communities at the highest level.
Continuing to evolve our culture
Throughout 2022, we continued to embrace flexible and hybrid workstyles and invest in our technologies and facilities to make our environments truly collaborative. Committed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, we saw our inclusion score increase to 85.2 per cent in 2022—4.9 points higher than the industry average. We also achieved an employee engagement rating of 85.3 per cent based on results from our engagement survey and were recognized as 1 of Canada’s Most Admired Cultures and 1 of Alberta’s Top 75 Employers.
Supporting excellent customer experience
As we advance our commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences, we expanded our foundational customer experience training in 2022 to 1,000 team members across our organization. Acknowledging our team members who demonstrate incredible care and dedication towards our customers is an important part of delivering an exceptional customer experience. In April 2022, we held our first-ever Customer Experience (CX) Awards, which recognized 6 team members who have had an outstanding impact on our customers.
Enhancing our cyber security and vulnerability management
We are committed to evolving our security practice across people, processes and technology to safeguard the privacy of our members. In 2022, we worked with world-class partners to advance our data backup and recovery solution and vulnerability management.
Alberta Blue Cross® is a trusted partner for our organization. We want the best for our staff, so they’re supported to provide excellent service to our clients. Your team helps us deliver a wide range of extended health benefits that make us an employer of choice in the province and, most importantly, provides protection for our staff and their precious families. We’re so grateful to Alberta Blue Cross® for always being willing to explore creative options to care for our employees.”
Vice-president, Employee & Corporate Services
Workers' Compensation Board