Meet a Local Business

Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield

Tell us about your business. What services or products do you offer. where are you located, etc.?

One of America’s leading health insurance organizations and an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Highmark, Inc. and its affiliated health plans work passionately to deliver high-quality, accessible, understandable, and affordable experiences, outcomes, and solutions to customers. As the fourth-largest overall Blue Cross Blue Shield-affiliated organization, Highmark Inc. and its Blue-branded affiliates proudly cover the insurance needs of more than 6 million members in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and West Virginia. Its diversified businesses serve group customer and individual needs across the United States through dental insurance and other related businesses.

How does your business support local communities?

At Highmark, we continue to uphold a strong tradition of hands-on community support and philanthropy. We believe that we have a fundamental responsibility to be leaders and stewards in the community, working to improve the health and well-being of those we serve by giving back to, reinvesting in, and strengthening the communities where our customers and employees live, work, and play. We are also actively engaged in addressing social determinants of health and health equity in our local communities.

Each year, our parent company, Highmark Health and its affiliates, including our affiliated foundations, collectively provide millions of dollars to support stronger communities of healthier people. Our employees also log thousands of volunteer hours in our communities each year. In addition to traditional giving in 2020, Highmark Health and its subsidiaries and affiliates invested more than $750 million to support customers, providers, and communities during the pandemic.

But financial support is just part of our commitment to being actively engaged in our communities and doing what’s right. You can also see our commitment at work in programs like Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community, the free support offered to grieving children by the Highmark Caring Place, advocacy for diversity and inclusion and environmental sustainability, and the efforts of our employee volunteers.

You can learn more about Highmark’s community involvement at Highmark.com.

How does the Choose Local campaign fall in line with your business’s mission or values?

At Highmark, our mission is to create a remarkable health experience, freeing people to be their best. Our vision is a world where everyone embraces health. We place the customer at the center of everything we do and are driven to create the future of health care.

Just like Choose Local, Highmark is committed to building a fundamentally equitable, resilient, healthy and prosperous region and have provided millions of dollars to help address the urgent economic issues in the community that locally owned businesses continue to face as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What inspires your work?

Our work is tied to a larger social mission to build stronger communities of healthier people. That same mission guides our organizational giving.

Much of that giving takes the form of providing health coverage and care to those who are unable to pay for services. Philanthropic giving is just as important — including a United Way campaign that raises millions of dollars each year, the work of Highmark Health foundations, and hundreds of sponsorships and grants that help support health, wellness, education, human services, arts, and other community-based organizations. The same spirit of giving drives the time and effort our employees dedicate to volunteering.

Highmark proudly builds on its decades-long legacy of giving.

Plus, is there anything else you’d want to share related to your support of the organization?

At Highmark, we are committed to being open, inclusive and supportive to all. Our workforce includes talented people from every background. We welcome and value new ideas, different experiences and fresh perspectives.

For us, supporting a diverse and inclusive workforce is more than the right thing to do. It makes us stronger as a business and more innovative as a group — positioning us to be highly effective at serving our customers and communities, such as Choose Local.

What is the best way for consumers to connect with your business and your services or initiatives?

Please visit www.Highmark.com