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UPMC Health Plan offers provider directory via mobile site

UPMC Health Plan is letting members and non-members access its provider directory via a mobile-optimized site.

Users can browse the company?s network of doctors, hospitals, facilities and urgent-care centers. UPMC Health Plan is also expanding its presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to get the word out about the mobile site, as well as offer members access via social media.

"The thinking behind the mobile site is because of our membership base," said Jeff Nelson, vice president of marketing and communications at UPMC Health Plan, Pennsylvania. "We needed to be able to reach out to them and provide them with information and data on their specific healthplan.

"If someone is out and about and they need to track a doctor they don?t have to call us or go to a fixed computer," he said. "They can search it on their mobile device and we find that it?s much more convenient for people."

UPMC Health Plan claims to be the second-largest health insurer in western Pennsylvania and is owned by UPMC, one of the nation's top-ranked health systems.

Mobile health
The company decided to launch a mobile site specifically for directory access due to an increasing amount of visitors accessing that part of its Web site.

UPMC is looking to include a virtual ID card and members? access to their personal health record.

Users can browse doctors

Users can look for a specific provider

Users can contact UPMC via their mobile phone

Users can search by network, doctors, hospitals and facilities and urgent care centers.

Additionally, users can search for specific physicians by last name, ZIP code, distance from ZIP code, type of provider or provider speciality.

Users can also download a short cut to the site on their BlackBerry, Android and iPhone devices.

"Ultimately as part of our strategy we want to use SMS to inform individuals based on their desire," Mr. Nelson said. "However, we don?t want to be invasive and aggrevate our members.

"An example of how we would use SMS would be that when a subscription is runnig out, we can remind them to refill," he said.