2025 Annual Member Message from ICUBA

Stronger Benefits Start With You

Healthcare is one of the fastest-growing expenses for both individuals and employers. Each time unnecessary services are used, or care is delivered in higher-cost settings, when lower-cost, high-quality alternatives are available, overall costs increase. These costs don’t just affect one person; they ripple across the entire ICUBA community. Making smarter healthcare choices protects the sustainability of the plan. When we collectively avoid unnecessary costs, ICUBA can continue investing in innovative benefits, wellness incentives, and programs that improve care without increasing financial strain on members or employers.

Your everyday healthcare decisions matter, and they directly shape the quality and affordability of benefits for you, your family, and the entire ICUBA community.

Benefits and Programs Designed Around Value

ICUBA’s benefits are built to do more than just cover medical bills; they are strategically designed to help you find care that delivers the best results at the lowest cost. This approach, called value-based care, focuses on outcomes, quality, and efficiency rather than the quantity of services provided.

When you use these benefits, you’re getting better care and you’re helping keep the plan affordable for everyone.

Here’s how some of ICUBA’s value-based programs work for you:

• Lantern (Elective Surgeries): For eligible elective procedures, you gain access to an elite network of high-quality surgeons, covered at 100%. That means no deductible or out-of-pocket costs, plus covered travel for you and a companion. Choosing Lantern ensures safer care, fewer complications, and zero financial surprises!

• ICUBAcares Pharmacist Advocate: Get one-on-one support from a pharmacist advocate who can review your medications, identify cost-saving opportunities, and coordinate with your doctors.

• Embold Health Provider Search Tool: Choose a provider based on actual outcomes, quality, and practice patterns, not just basic directory information. This tool gives you clear insight into which providers consistently deliver the best care, helping you make more confident healthcare decisions.

• Virtual & Preventive Care Options: You have convenient, low-cost options like $5 Teladoc visits for everyday medical and behavioral healthcare, and Hinge Health for musculoskeletal pain - designed to prevent bigger health issues down the road.

• My Health Novel: Personalized lifestyle and chronic condition programs available at no cost, helping you build healthier habits and stay on top of your physical and emotional wellbeing.

• Personify Health: A robust wellbeing program that rewards you for healthy choices and encourages engagement in your own care.

Together, these programs ensure you’re connected to the right care, at the right time, and at the right cost. By using these benefits, you protect your health while helping to manage rising healthcare costs for everyone.

You Help Shape ICUBA’s Future

ICUBA’s strength comes from collaboration. By joining together, ICUBA member schools can offer benefits usually reserved for much larger employers. But sustaining those benefits depends on all of us, and that includes you! Every healthcare choice we make, big or small, has a ripple effect across the entire community. By following four simple steps, Choose, Use, Prioritize, and Engage, you can directly improve your health, lower costs, and help ICUBA remain strong for years to come.

Choose wisely. When you choose in-network, high-performing providers, you gain access to safer care and better outcomes. High-quality providers reduce complications, avoid unnecessary services, and keep your out-of-pocket expenses lower. Every time you choose wisely, you also help ICUBA control costs across the entire plan. Tools like the Provider Search Tool from Embold Health can help you identify the highest performing providers in the BlueCross BlueShield network to make sure you have access to the best care!

Use the resources designed for you. Programs like Lantern Surgery Care, Embold Health, Teladoc, and other point solutions are designed to connect you with high-value care. High-value care means receiving effective treatments that lead to better health outcomes while minimizing unnecessary costs and maximizing patient satisfaction. By using these programs, you’re following care pathways that are proven to deliver better results, such as faster recovery, fewer hospital readmissions, and lower out-of-pocket expenses, for you and for the whole ICUBA community.

Prioritize prevention. Preventive care is the foundation of long-term health. Annual checkups, screenings, vaccines, and lifestyle programs like My Health Novel catch health issues early, before they become bigger problems. By prioritizing prevention, you protect your own health while reducing the long-term financial impact on the plan.

Engage fully. Take advantage of ICUBAcares, your pharmacist advocate, wellbeing incentives through Personify, and other support services. Engaging with these resources helps you get the most from your benefits, avoid waste, and make sure your care is well-coordinated.

ICUBA’s future isn’t shaped by one decision; it’s built on thousands of smart choices made by members like you every day. Each of these actions benefits not only you, but also your colleagues, your employer, and every ICUBA member across all 24 ICUBA schools. When you choose your providers wisely, use your benefits thoughtfully, prioritize preventive care, and engage with ICUBA’s programs and partners, you help ICUBA keep premiums stable, expand access to innovative programs, and ensure ICUBA can continue to offer Better Benefits through Collaboration for years to come.

Challenge Dates

This challenge starts in Personify on December 16, 2025 & ends December 30, 2025

The last chance to upload your steps is January 2, 2026. Steps uploaded after this date won’t be counted in the final results. Try uploading daily - it’s more fun!

Joining Teams

• Teams can have up to 10 participants.

• Try to have a full team of 10 to maximize your score.

• I've heard the best team for this challenge is team "Jingle all the Way!"

Challenge Scores

• Team scores are based on total team steps.

• The more steps your team gets, the better your score.

• To contribute to your team score, upload steps from a fitness tracker or app.

• You can get credit for a maximum of 30,000 steps per day (so aim high)!

• The team with the most steps at the end of the challenge wins.

Challenge Destinations

• As you go, try to unlock each destination with your team.

• If you unlock all the destinations before the challenge ends, keep walking. Another team could still pass you on the Challenge Leaderboard.

Things to Know

• If you leave the challenge, you have until December 19, 2025 to rejoin. If you don’t rejoin by this date you won’t be able to participate in this challenge.

• Participant names and step counts may be shared with other challenge participants and administrators.

YOU HAVE UP TO 14 DAYS TO GO BACK AND ENTER STEPS PRIOR TO THE UPLOAD DEADLINE. SKIP THE HEARTACHE, JOIN BEFORE THE CHALLENGE STARTS AND TRACK DAILY!