Analyzing Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall's Contribution to Healthcare

This report details the significant contributions of Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall to the healthcare industry, particularly during her tenure as President and CEO of Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC). It highlights her early career as an ICU nurse, which shaped her perspective on patient care and healthcare system improvement. The report outlines her leadership roles at Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Illinois and Texas, where she achieved substantial financial and membership growth. It further discusses her involvement in the Affordable Care Act rollout, her founding of the Health Care Transformation Task Force, and her strategic acquisition of MEDecision to enhance HCSC's IT infrastructure and care management capabilities. The report concludes by emphasizing her vision for customer advocacy and her lasting impact on the American healthcare system, solidifying her legacy as a transformative leader in the field. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Running head: DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 1
About Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall and her Contribution to Healthcare
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 2
About Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall and her contribution to healthcare
Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall also known as Pat is a world figure and worked for Health
Care Service Corporation as the President and as the C.E.O from 2007 to 2015 from when she
retired from service. Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC) is the largest mutual health
insurance company in the country. With over 25 years of experience in health insurance, she has
greatly contributed to the growth and development of various health programs. A good, example
of such program is Medicare +Choice that stated in 1998 (Health Care Service Corporation
2018).
Her expertise in HIPAA and HITECH afforded her to be the privacy officer in different hospitals
and health plans. Prior to joining Health Care Service Corporation, she acted as the Chief
Executive Officer and the President of Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Illinois and that of Texas.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield is a division of Health Care Service Corporation. While at Illinois, she
directed the corporation’s finances, enterprise process management, actuarial and treasury
departments, subscriber services, and information technology. In her tenure in Texas where she
joined in 1993, she was responsible for all operations in Texas, including major and national
accounts, local group markets, health care management, public affairs and individual health
products. Other places she has worked include A. Foster Higgins, VHA and Aetna/Partner
Health Plans (Acquire Media. 2018). Below is a picture of this hero by the name Patricia
Hemingway.
Dr. Patricia Hemingway Hall

DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 3
Hemingway Hal was an ICU nurse before moving into health insurance services. This
role shaped her views about how the healthcare system should work and that is what helped her
climb up the ladder at a faster rate. According to her, every health care system should provide
appropriate care to its parents in the most financially sound way so as to foster innovation and
improvement. Also, she held a strong belief that it is the healthcare providers and payers who are
responsible for improving the care system. As a nurse, she has learned her lesson the hard way
where she worked to address the needs of her patients. Hemingway Hall has applied the lessons
learned into her role of care management, resource management and as the President and the
Chief Operating Officer of Health Care Service Corporation. While at Blue Cross and Blue
Shield in Texas, she managed to achieve a financial and membership growth of up to 750,000
members. This allowed the company to improve its market share in the very competitive state,
Texas. Her efforts were recognized as the best in general customer satisfaction and as a result,
was awarded more than two dozen awards including the ‘Women’s Leadership Award and
Partners in Education Award’ (Cross 2014).
Hemingway Hall who retired at 62 years was considered one of the most powerful
individuals in the health care industry. She possesses great influence in the Chicago-based
HCSC. The corporation is the largest non-profit making insurer in Chicago and is mainly
concerned with marketing Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance plans in five states. The states
include Illinois, Texas, New Mexico, Montana, and Oklahoma. Hall was a nurse before joining
this corporation. During her leadership, she made significant investments in the Americans
health care systems thereby improving the lives of millions of citizens. She also expanded the
coverage of the insurance plans to ensure they were accessible to as many people as possible
(Chicago Magazine 2014).

DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 4
Hemingway Hall and HCSC were among the thirteen heavyweight health insurance
players that were pulled in during the Obama’s era to help fix the bungled rollout of the federal
exchange website. During her time as the president, she attracted the attention of the
policymakers because of her influence and experience as far as health care and insurance are
concerned. Under her leadership, she founded the Health Care Transformation Task Force which
is a collection of insurers, employers, and patients with the aim of improving the level of service
delivery in the health care sectors. The task force has committed to moving the healthcare
systems through a model that gives fruitful outcomes at an affordable price. The aim was to
change the current system where clients pay for every service.
Health Care Service Corporation offers the same license as offered by Blue Cross and
Blue Shield. It offers health insurance for employers. During her time, Hemingway Hall led the
corporation into public insurance exchange that was facilitated by the Affordable Care Act which
was rolled out in 2014. The venture was not very welcome at first and the company lost $282
million as a result of exchange membership. The loss was even more from the Texas subsidiary
which lost approximately $400 million while that of Illinois parted with $280 million because of
individual policies. For the first time in the history of the corporation, the medical claims
significantly outpaced premium revenue (Herman, 2016).
Despite the downside in 2014, in overall, the membership at HCSC grew to
approximately 16 million Americans during the reign of Hemingway Hall. She received a
number of awards and recognition because of her contribution to the health industry. Hemingway
Hall was named among the “50 Hospital and healthcare women leaders” in 2010, “100 most
powerful people in healthcare” and ‘top 25 women in healthcare” in the year 2009. She made
immense efforts to improve and enhance interaction between members. Her dream was to

DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 5
transition the level of customer service into customer advocacy. With its success, the move
changed the view of customer relations and consequently granted the customer more control
concerning their health and its associated costs (New York Times 2018).
In her tenure, she made major developmental moves aimed at widening the market of the
corporation in the future. In her very last years at Health Care Service Corporation, she acquired
MEDecision. This is one of the leading health information technology companies in the country.
The move was aimed at reducing the health care cost and consequently improving the health
outcomes to the patients (Meyer 2014). This put HCSC at the top gear enabling it to be the
industry leader as far as wellness and care management is concerned. Looking into the future,
Hemingway Hal had a vision of improving the IT infrastructure and thus the acquisition. Such
improvement would ensure that the company delivers unparalleled customer’s health data,
employers and those of health care providers with great transparency, efficiency and with less
time (Deam, 2016).
As far as Health Care Service Corporation is concerned, it is the largest non-profit
making insurance company that serves in five states. The company serves over 16 million
members and consists of over 16,000 employees. The corporation runs Dearborn National, which
includes; Fort Dearborn Life Insurance in New York, Dental Network of America and Colorado
Bankers Life insurance Company. The company’s vision is to become the world leader in
healthcare insurance. How they achieve this is by doing everything in their power to be with
their clients not only at times of sickness but also in health. The major values include respect for
all, integrity, commitment to service, excellence and above all, caring for their member
(Bloomberg 2018).

DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 6
Since Hemingway Hall took over Health Care Service Corporation, I believe that she did
not only rebrand the company but also developed it to some several strides ahead. With her
leadership, the company has grown to become one of the strongest insurance companies in both
Chicago and the neighboring states. She is visionary and hardworking. Her career life from an
ICU nurse to the president of one of the biggest non-profit making business is encouraging.
Indeed, her dream was to transition the level of customer service into customer advocacy.
She stands a hero in the way she tremendously improved the market share in Texas, one
of the most competitive states when it comes to health insurance business. To be more specific,
she is not moved by fear of entering into new markets. Despite the losses made by the company
in 2014, Hemingway Hall does not weaver but continues to make new developments. Indeed, she
has a passion for the health care and particularly in the health of fellow Americans. With the
strong foundation that she left in 2015, Health Care Service Corporation has every reason to
become even better in terms of improving service to their customers. All through her life, it is
clear that she strived to better and to do the right thing both for the company’s gain as well as for
the benefit of the customer. She demonstrated the highest level of ethical behavior in the
company and most importantly, delivered a premium health insurance company in America. I
believe she received a number of awards and recognition because of her contribution to the
health industry.

DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 7
References
Acquire Media. (Apr 19, 2018). Celgene Corporation Announces Changes to Its Board of
Directors. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from http://ir.celgene.com/releasedetail.cfm?
releaseid=1064316
Bloomberg. (June 2018). Patricia Arlene Hemingway Hall; Cardinal Health Inc. Retrieved on
May 31, 2015 from https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?
personId=4865435&privcapId=172207
Chicago Magazine. (2014). 100 Most Powerful Chicagoans 2014; Patricia Hemingway Hall.
Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2014/power-patricia-
hemingway/
Cross, B. (2014). Blue Shield of Illinois, a Division of Health Care Service Corporation, a
Mutual Legal Reserve Company, an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue
Shield Association.© Copyright 2009. Health Care Service Corporation. All Rights
Reserved. Legal Disclaimer| Privacy Statement| Code Of Conduct.
Deam, J. (October 8, 2016). Big pay for insurers as premiums rise and plans tighten; Blue Cross
ditches ACA plans, rewards execs millions in pay. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/medical/article/Big-pay-for-insurers-as-
premiums-rise-and-plans-9957321.php

DR. PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL 8
Health Care Service Corporation. (2018). Living Our Purpose and Core Values. Retrieved on
May 31, 2015 from http://www.hcsc.com/pdf/hcsc_code_conduct.pdf
Health Care Service Corporation. (2018). Who we are. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
http://www.hcsc.com/who-we-are
Herman, B. (July 30, 2015). Modern Healthcare; Hemingway Hall to retire as CEO of Health
Care Service Corp. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150730/NEWS/150739988
Herman, B. (September 26, 2016). Modern Healthcare; Hemingway Hall to retire as CEO of
Health Care Service Corp. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160926/NEWS/160929921
LinkedIn. (2018). Patricia Hall profiles. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/Patricia/Hall
Meyer, A. (2014). Crain’s Chicago Business; The 20 Most Powerful Women in Chicago
Business 2014. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/section/most-powerful-women?name=Hall
New York Times. (June 1, 2018). Business Day Markets; Celgene Corporation Announces
Changes to Its Board of Directors. Retrieved on May 31, 2015 from
http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/stocks/news/press_release.asp?
docTag=201804190748BIZWIRE_USPRX____BW5707&feedID=600&press_symbol=
72762