Apollo Hospitals has signed an agreement with a US-based insurance company Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield a subsidiary of Anthem Wellpoint. WellPoint is one of the largest healthcare insurers in the US. As per the agreement Anthem WellPoint will initially send the employees of Serigraph Inc, a corporate client of Anthem WellPoint, to Apollo Hospitals for certain elective procedures at Delhi and Bangalore Apollo Hospitals to start with and later to all JCI accredited Apollo Hospitals. All the patients will be routed through their global TPA, Mondial Assistance, USA which is already empanelled with Apollo Hospitals. Healthbase would handle on-the-ground logistics support, which again has a tie-up with Apollo Hospitals.

A high level team from Anthem WellPoint and Mondial visited the Apollo hospitals in November 08.Their standard of evaluation was based on the quality healthcare services, clinical outcomes and skills in handling international patients.

This pilot project has been launched for about six months. Initially it will cover about 700 group members and their dependents at Serigraph. WellPoint case managers will coordinate with patients on their travel and medical arrangement with the hospitals in India. All the financial details will be looked after by Serigraph's insurer, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. The employer-funded healthcare plan will cover the costs of airfare and accommodations, as well as a dedicated case manager to coordinate travel, medical care plus post-operative care upon return to US.

According to Preetha Reddy, MD Apollo Group of Hospitals, Anthem WellPoint and Mondial selected Apollo Hospitals as their partners in this programme. "The programme meets the guidelines set for Medical Tourism by AMA (American Medical Association) and we will strive to achieve the best healthcare standards to ensure total success of this programme," Reddy said.

The Apollo Hospitals Group comprises of a network of 43 hospitals in India and overseas, owning and managing over 9000 hospital beds. Apollo Hospitals is known for specialties, super-specialty and multi - specialty healthcare. Apart from the core area of hospitals, the group has also diversified into various related avenues including e-health, franchising, IT & internet based technology, telemedicine, virtual medical university, education and training, home healthcare, pharmacy retailing, hospital project management and health insurance.