HEALTH PLAN WORKER SAYS HE'S DOING PART TO KEEP COSTS DOWN

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 24, 1993                   TAG: 9301260230
SECTION: ECONOMY                    PAGE: EC-12   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
HEALTH PLAN WORKER SAYS HE'S DOING PART TO KEEP COSTS DOWN
Craig Sandras, through his work with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia, believes he's helping to solve a major crisis: the mounting cost of health care.
Still, he worries about the general economy, especially the Roanoke Valley's tightening job market.
Sandras is a project consultant at the health plan's Roanoke office. His project team, created last April, is looking for ways to control expenses.
He said Blue Cross is trying to solve the problems of health care on several fronts, here and in Richmond, where the Virginia Blues are based.
His own team focuses on studying the process of handling and paying claims, striving for efficiencies that will hold down costs. He said that would also control expenses for its customers.
The Blues have a good operation, Sandras said, but the team wants to make it better. The company went through a major reorganization last year that added jobs and expanded its offices in Roanoke. Still pending is its purchase of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan that services the Washington, D.C., market.
It's trying to streamline what Sandras calls "the front end." If claims are handled correctly in the beginning, he said, there will be fewer problems at the back end.
Blue Cross, he said, wants "to get out of the reactive mode," or responding to customer questions, and become more active by "doing it right the first time."
Sandras, who started with Blue Cross and Blue Shield as a programmer analyst 3 1/2 years ago, said he has no concern about his own job because the company "has been doing real well."
But he's worried about the local economy because he has friends who have lost jobs at the Radford Arsenal, Dominion Bank, Gardner Denver and ITT.
Companies that are laying off, Sandras pointed out, are those that "have been entrenched here a long time."
This part of Virginia needs to attract more industries, he said.
He likes the proposal for construction of shell buildings to offer prospects. And Sandras said the area's industrial advertising should stress the loyalty and work ethic of local people.
On the other hand, he's hopeful that the national economy is improving. Sandras was encouraged that political leaders now "focus on us, not the outside," emphasizing things that need to be done at home.
As the father of two children, his top priority is education. He has friends who are educators but got out of the field because "the money is not right" and because of the general situation in the schools.
Another priority for Sandras is industry. This nation, he said, must again become the leader in industry, doing "the best job in the world whatever we do."

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB