TriWest Healthcare Alliance

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TriWest Healthcare Alliance

Type	Private; owned by an alliance of 16 BlueCross BlueShield companies and two university hospitals
Founded	Phoenix, Arizona (1995)
Headquarters	Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A.
Area served	21-state TRICARE West Region
Key people	David J. McIntyre, Jr., President & CEO Dr. Kenneth L. Farmer, Jr., Exec. VP & COO Lawrence Haggerty, Exec. VP & CFO
Industry	Health benefits
Website	www.triwest.com

TriWest Healthcare Alliance is a Phoenix, Arizona based corporation owned by an alliance of 16 Blue Cross Blue Shield franchises and two university hospitals.^[1] TriWest has a single line of business providing health benefits under the United States Department of Defense (DoD) TRICARE program in the 21-state TRICARE West Region.^[2]

[edit] History

In 1995 an alliance of 11 Blue Cross Blue Shield franchises, along with the University of Colorado Hospital and University of New Mexico Hospital, created a private corporation known as TriWest Healthcare Alliance. The corporation was established to compete for a U.S. Government contract to manage civilian health care benefits under the newly-established TRICARE program within the 16-state TRICARE Central Region, also known as Regions 7 and 8. In 1996 TriWest was awarded the contract for the TRICARE Central Region and began operations. The TRICARE Central Region included the following states: Arizona; Colorado; southern Idaho; Iowa; Kansas; Minnesota; Missouri; Montana; Nebraska; Nevada; New Mexico; North Dakota; South Dakota; El Paso, Texas; Utah; and Wyoming. TriWest was subsequently awarded an extension to this contract, which continued until 2004.^{[citation needed]}

On August 21, 2003, TriWest was awarded the TRICARE Managed Care Support Contract for the TRICARE West Region. The five-year contract, valued at approximately $10 billion, expanded TriWest's service area to 21 states and over 2.5 million beneficiaries. With the addition of Alaska, California, Hawaii, northern Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to the TriWest service area, four additional Blue Cross Blue Shield franchisees also gained ownership interest in the corporation.^[3]