Unicare Ratings		20 Customer Ratings
Coverage:		1.42 out of 5
Cost:		1.53 out of 5
Customer Service:		1.42 out of 5
Claims:		1.22 out of 5

As a subsidiary of WellPoint, Unicare is a national organization that offers a wide array of heath plans and products for its customers at competitive prices. The organization is committed to bringing these health plans and products to its customers through cooperation among customers, consultants, brokers, providers and employees. As a subsidiary of WellPoint, Unicare is part of one the largest publicly traded health care companies in the United States under the trade name of Health Networks Inc. This network serves the needs of more than 13 million members and about 42.6 million specialty members.

Unicare is aware that everyone has different health needs. Therefore, the company offers various health plans that include pharmacy, dental, le and disability insurance and other benefits that members can tailor to their specific needs. The company's mission is to help their customers and associates to take control of their own health care and financial future. The sales and accounting staff are there to listen to what the customers need and to create benefits for them that will serve them in the long term, providing them with the most value for their money.

The Unicare company draws consultants from many different fields to make up its senior management team. These individuals come from the areas of financial services, commercial insurance, specialty product sales and from other Fortune 500 companies. Before 1995, Unicare was the brand name used in California. However after that year, the name became the symbol for the WellPoint businesses in the rest of the country. For example, WellPoint purchased the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1996, the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1997 and the Rush Prudential Health Plans of Illinois in 2000. These acquisitions and mergers enabled Unicare to offer more products and services to its members that ranged from the well-known PPO products, HMO products to the Consumer Driven Products.

The structure of Unicare's business plan centers around the Market Business Unit or WellPoint. Each market business unit (MBU) serves a specific group of customers and has a full organization of sales and service employees and functions. Some of the MBU's, such as MassMutual and John Hancock, have a larger focus on the needs of multistate customers because of the focus of these organizations that existed before they became part of WellPoint and Unicare. In other areas, the MBU's are smaller and can therefore focus more on the individual customers because of the smaller nature of the area that they serve. Each MBU, whether it is large or small, is responsible for all the duties of its office, such as marketing, enrolling new customers, and underwriting and servicing the policies it sells to meet the needs of its members.

Since customers want the best value for their dollar and employers want the best benefits for their employees at a competitive price, Unicare creates products for its customers that combine the best products with the best cost. With access to an extensive network of health care providers, Unicare is able to offer a comprehensive array of health plans and products. The company's philosophy is to work cooperatively with the providers and the members to make health care plans affordable for the general population. In the different health care plans, employers and individuals can choose basic plans or more comprehensive plans to meet their unique needs.

The strategy that Unicare applies to offering this wide array of products and services is to have a diversified mix of traditional products while focusing on developing new plans that integrate the best of the old and new. The company does offer incentives to customers to encourage them to select more comprehensive and tightly knit plans.

Unicare believes that it should always stay ahead in the field of health care plans because that allows the company to be able to predict future health care costs. This gives them a method of being able to control these costs in the future and still be able to provide a greater choice for the members in the health care plans they choose. The members that need more care are encouraged to select plans that are more intensely managed, while members with no immediate health care needs are encouraged to select plans that give them more personal freedom. These plans help to control the type of health care and access to care in exchange for additional costs.

Self-funded employers can take advantage of the managed care services from Unicare. These services include underwriting, actuarial services, access to the network of health care providers, management of medical services and processing claims. The unique assortment of products and services by this company has been developed to meet the needs of a great range of individuals, employers and employees.