WellPoint Launches Zagat Survey Tool to Help Consumers Rate Experiences with Their Doctors

INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE: WLP) , the nation's largest health benefits company, today announced it will launch the Zagat Health Survey tool to members in its Blue Cross and/or Blue Shield subsidiaries in metropolitan Los Angeles, Connecticut and greater Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio markets.

The survey tool is now available to members in these cities enrolled in the company's Blue Lumenos consumer driven health plans. The tool will be made available to all members in these locations at the end of the first quarter of 2008.

"Through our partnership with Zagat, WellPoint is helping address an unmet need for peer-to-peer interaction among health care consumers," said Jason Gorevic, WellPoint's chief marketing and product officer. "Zagat is widely known and trusted for its ability to help people share and learn from other consumer experiences. Zagat is an ideal partner to not only create a trusted resource for consumers, but also to actively engage consumers in sharing and utilizing that information."

"WellPoint is committed to providing members in its health plan subsidiaries with the data and tools necessary to help them take a more active role in their health care decision making. Consumer experience information such as that enabled by the Zagat Health Survey tool is an important complement to the clinical quality, cost and other tools we provide to support consumers' health care decision-making," said Gorevic.

The new survey tool enables members to review and evaluate physicians based on a set of distinct criteria, creating a trusted resource to support informed member decision-making. The online survey tool will allow consumers to review their doctor visits based on:

    --  Trust
    --  Communication
    --  Availability
    --  Environment

In addition, the survey will feature a comments section, allowing members to expand on their ratings. These categories are designed to solely reflect a consumer's experience with a physician, not to reflect the quality of care they received. This will complement the clinical quality, cost and other resources available to help consumers make decisions. The survey and results will be available free of charge to members via their health plans' Web sites. WellPoint will continue to progressively introduce this tool across all of its health plans' markets.

About WellPoint, Inc.

WellPoint's mission is to improve the lives of the people it serves and the health of its communities. WellPoint, Inc. is the largest health benefits company in terms of commercial membership in the United States. Through its nationwide networks, the company delivers a number of leading health benefit solutions through a broad portfolio of integrated health care plans and related services, along with a wide range of specialty products such as life and disability insurance benefits, pharmacy benefit management, dental, vision, behavioral health benefit services, as well as long term care insurance and flexible spending accounts. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, WellPoint is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and serves its members as the Blue Cross licensee for California; the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York (as Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in 10 New York City metropolitan and surrounding counties and as Empire Blue Cross or Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in selected upstate counties only), Ohio, Virginia (excluding the city of Fairfax, the town of Vienna and the area east of State Route 123), Wisconsin; and through UniCare. Additional information about WellPoint is available at www.wellpoint.com.

About Zagat Survey, LLC

Known as the "wildly popular" "burgundy bible", Zagat Survey is the world's most trusted source for information about where to eat, drink, stay and play. With more than 300,000 surveyors, Zagat Survey rates and reviews restaurants, hotels, nightlife, movies, music, golf, shopping and a range of other entertainment categories and is lauded as the "most up-to-date, comprehensive and reliable" guide ever published. Zagat content is available to consumers wherever and whenever they need it: in book format, on ZAGAT.com, via the downloadable ZAGAT TO GO for smartphones and on the mobile web with ZAGAT.mobi. For more information, visit ZAGAT.com