CIGNA HealthCare today launched an Innovation Lab that is designed to develop integrated, top Six-Sigma level end-to-end service for medical, dental, pharmacy and behavioral health plan participants.

The Lab will be staffed with 100 specially trained consumer advisors representing CIGNA’s service, clinical and product teams to discuss health benefit and related financial information with consumers and help them optimize their health, benefits and plan selections. Innovation Lab consumer service capabilities will feature a single contact to respond to inquiries regarding any of the participating members’ CIGNA plans, including:

— providing health care cost estimates and treatment quality
information;
— offering guidance during pre-plan enrollment to help consumers in
choosing a plan configuration for their circumstance; and
— connecting consumers with available health advocacy programs, such as
wellness or disease management programs, as appropriate.

Among the first customers for the Lab is Big Y Foods(R) in Springfield, MA. Big Y is one of the largest independently owned supermarket chains in New England and currently operates 54 stores throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts with over 9,000 employees.

“We believe that a positive service experience can help our employees to become more engaged in their health care and make better health-related decisions,” said Tom Butler, Big Y’s Compensation and Benefit Services Manager. “This is a unique opportunity for us to partner with CIGNA to test service concepts and solutions that will help our employees and their dependents receive the most from their health care benefits and services.”

The formation of the Lab will be led by a Six Sigma Master Black Belt who will guide the Lab’s design, set-up and establishment of performance and results measurement criteria. Lab staff has been drawn from CIGNA HealthCare’s Bristol service operations teams and provided with four weeks of specialized training. Staff will also be responsible for testing new consumer-facing technologies and health support services.

According to CIGNA Executive Vice President of Service and Technology Scott Storrer, the Innovation Lab is the linchpin in the new CIGNA service model, which places greater emphasis on addressing the more complex issues faced by today’s health care consumer. “Our consumer-oriented service strategy is focused on improving the health of our members through health advocacy and member education,” Storrer said. “This approach will help ensure CIGNA’s service teams can deliver maximum value to customers and members in a cost-effective way.”

Notably, in May 2006 CIGNA HealthCare was recognized for call center operation customer satisfaction excellence under the J.D. Power and Associates Certified Call Center Program(SM) for delivering “An Outstanding Customer Service Experience” for its nine million medical members nationwide.

About CIGNA HealthCare
CIGNA HealthCare, headquartered in Bloomfield, CT, provides medical benefits plans, dental coverage, behavioral health coverage, pharmacy benefits and products and services that integrate and analyze information to support consumerism and health advocacy. “CIGNA” and “CIGNA HealthCare” refer to various operating subsidiaries of CIGNA Corporation (NYSE: CI) . Products and services are provided by these operating subsidiaries and not by CIGNA Corporation.

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