Premera Blue Cross, the big Mountlake Terrace, Wash.-based health-care insurer, says earlier projections that its Spokane campus would employ 630 people by next year might not come true, based on efficiencies the insurer is implementing.


Still, it says, the operation here will remain the focus of Premeras overall employment growth.


Last year, Premera completed a $12 million, 45,000-square-foot addition to its complex at 3900 E. Sprague, and since then it has consolidated there an office it had on Spokanes North Side.


The insurer has added roughly 120 workers here in the past three yearshalf of those in the past yearand now employs nearly 500 people at its Spokane regional office, says William Akers, general manager of Eastern Washington operations.


While the Spokane operation will continue to grow, it might not grow as fast as expected earlier, and some of the growth will be a result of shifting jobs here from the insurers headquarters office in Mountlake Terrace, rather than from overall company growth, says Akers. He says thats because Premera increasingly is focusing on improving efficiency.


Were interested in not having the cost of our administrative staff be one of the contributors driving up the cost of insurance for members, says Akers, who also is Premeras vice president for Washington health-care delivery systems.


Theres an eye that were going to grow in the Spokane market, but were doing that cautiously while trying to keep costs down, he says.


Premera employees here process claims and provide customer service for members throughout the system, including for Premera Blue Cross health plans in Washington and Alaska, and its Lifewise health plans in Oregon and Arizona, Akers says.


Akers says that with the Spokane operations low employee turnover rates and good pool of qualified job candidates, the operation here figures prominently in Premeras growth strategy.


In addition to its region offices in Spokane and Mountlake Terrace, Premera has a regional office in Anchorage, Alaska, Akers says. Premera has a total of 2,500 employees at Mountlake Terrace and another 40 in Anchorage.


Premera is fortunate to be growing while other insurers arent, he says, adding that the industry has been hurt by the choices of an increasing number of employers to forgo offering insurance to their employees.


Overall, Premeras membership base has grown to 1.7 million members spread throughout Washington, Alaska, Oregon, and Arizona, up from 1.6 million members a year ago. As of May, the insurer had about 237,600 members in Eastern Washington, says Trevor Moore, Premeras small-group sales manager for this region.


Moore says the segment of Premeras membership base handled through the Washington Association for Health Insurance Trust, or small employers, grew about 27 percent over the last year, while its mid-size and large segments have grown about 13.5 percent.


Premeras expanded campus on East Sprague includes plenty of room for future growth here, Akers says.


Among other things, Premera added more room for training, which previously was tucked away in a basement room in an adjoining annex building there that could accommodate just eight trainees at a time. The new large training classroom is front and center in the main building, in a large windowed room with 24 computer terminals for trainees. Akers says the Spokane office has enough trainees lined up to have two classes of 24 new employees trained by the end of the year.


Many of the cubicles in the claims processing department outside of the new training classroom currently are vacant, waiting for new hires to fill them, Akers says.


In the newest building on the campus, about 30 percent of the 600 desks are now filled, and the rest await future hires. That building also includes a plush multimedia conference room with art and soft lighting.


Akers says Spokane is a good place to recruit people, and a good benefit package here means a lot, whereas in the Seattle area employees often will leave a job for a slightly higher paying position elsewhere, because the high cost of living makes cash for living expenses more important in that market than it is here.


Akers says that as a large employer itself, Premera also experiences the insurance rate increases its members do, and seeks to implement the types of programs for its own employees that it offers and promotes to its members.


For example, Premera is in the process of changing its cafeteria food-service provider in a move aimed at providing healthier food options and more recycling. The Premera campus layout also promotes employees use of stairs and long, underground walkways between the buildings.


Akers says Premera also has been focused for the last three years on implementing the concepts of lean manufacturing, which he says translates well to portions of its operations, including claims processing. He says that in Premeras case, applying lean principles boils down to wasting less effort and making small changes that save time. A change that saves a claims processor 34 minutes a day is meaningful when that savings is multiplied by about 500 claims processors throughout the company, Akers adds.


Meanwhile, Premera continues to look for ways to implement programs with its customers and the health-care providers it does business with to curb the rising cost of health care.


Though Premera doesnt plan any major changes to its offerings until 2010, it is adding complementary services that it hopes will contribute to cost savings by improving its members overall health. One such service it added this year is a smoking cessation program for large employers that allows people who are trying to quit smoking to go through the program more than once if needed, at no additional charge.


Things like lean are going to drive costs down, and we also are asking people to watch their diets and take good care of themselves, Aker says.


Contact Jeanne Gustafson at (509) 344-1264 or via e-mail at jeanneg@spokanejournal.com.