'LifeTimes' gets greener, saving money and trees

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans in Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico constantly review customer communications to strike the best balance among print, online and social media messages.

We do this to ensure Medicare policyholders always get the proper and most helpful media mix, while at the same time reducing costs and helping our environment.

For these reasons and to achieve more hard copy "LifeTimes" consistency across all four Health Care Service Corporation states, you will see some changes in the paper beginning in the second half of 2012.

For Illinois readers, this will be the last bimonthly, 16-page issue of the newsletter. "LifeTimes" will become an eight-page quarterly, with your first issue scheduled to arrive later this summer. Editions in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, meanwhile, will remain quarterlies, but they will also have eight pages to provide even more health, wellness and fitness information to customers there.

It all adds up to savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars - without sacrificing your access to the latest "LifeTimes" news and features any time you want it. This is because the highly interactive online version of "LifeTimes" (launched in Illinois in December last year) is expected to come to Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico sometime in 2012.

So however you choose to experience your award-winning "LifeTimes," we look forward to remaining your trusted Medicare information source for years to come.