For nearly 90 years, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine has helped employers and families access high-quality healthcare. Founded in 1938 as Associated Hospital Service, the organization has evolved alongside Maine’s healthcare system while remaining committed to improving health and strengthening communities. Today, Anthem helps employers deliver meaningful health benefits that support people at every stage of health while focusing on affordability, quality, and a simpler experience.
We’re built to do more than administer coverage. We’re working to be a lifetime trusted health partner, bringing together health plan solutions with clinical, behavioral, pharmacy, and complex-care capabilities designed to promote whole health.
For Maine employers, rising healthcare costs and workforce health directly affect business performance, productivity, and retention. Anthem’s strategy is designed for this reality — innovating and partnering to improve health, strengthen the healthcare system, and deliver greater value for employers and employees.
Nearly Nine Decades of Serving Maine
Anthem traces its roots to 1938, when Associated Hospital Service was founded as a nonprofit dedicated to making hospital care more accessible and affordable for Maine residents.
At a time when healthcare costs created financial hardship for many families, the organization introduced prepaid hospital coverage that expanded access while helping communities share risk and improve affordability.
As healthcare evolved, Associated Hospital Service became part of the Blue Cross movement, eventually becoming Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine. Through every change, one principle has remained constant: helping Maine people and businesses navigate an increasingly complex healthcare system.
Today, Anthem combines the scale of one of the nation’s leading health benefits organizations with deep local roots. That nearly 90-year history reflects resilience, adaptability, and a continued commitment to improving access, working to keep costs in check, and focusing on quality while evolving alongside employers, providers, and changing healthcare needs.
For Maine employers, that experience means working with a trusted partner that understands both the local healthcare landscape and the broader forces shaping healthcare nationwide.
Who We Are: A Whole-Health Partner for Maine Employers
Anthem supports health at every life stage through integrated health plans, clinical care, behavioral health, pharmacy, and complex-care services. This connected approach helps reduce fragmentation, improve coordination, and create a better experience for employees.
We also focus on delivering exceptional experiences by making benefits easier to understand, navigate, and use — because a health plan creates value only when people can confidently access the care they need.
What We Stand For: Purpose, Values, and How We Work
Anthem is driven by a bold purpose: improving the health of humanity. For employers, that means helping employees become healthier while making benefits easier to navigate and doing everything we can to keep costs in check.
Our culture is guided by five core values:
Community — we put people first.
Diversity — we value our differences.
Integrity — we build trust.
Agility — we embrace change.
Leadership — we lead by example.
These values shape how we partner with providers, support members with complex needs, and invest in the communities where our employees live and work.
Corporate Responsibility: Healthier Communities Support a Healthier Workforce
Anthem believes healthier communities create healthier people. That philosophy guides our corporate responsibility efforts, including philanthropy through our foundation, which focuses on maternal and child health, food as medicine, substance use disorder, health equity, and emergency relief.
These priorities reflect what employers see every day: health outcomes are shaped by much more than medical care alone.
Commitment to the Local Market: Maine Matters
Healthcare is local, and Anthem is committed to delivering value through strong relationships across Maine’s healthcare ecosystem. We work to maintain access, continuity, affordability, and quality for employers, employees, and families.
An example is Anthem’s work year after year in negotiating contracts with Maine’s largest health systems. On behalf of the Maine employers we are privileged to serve, we work to negotiate provider contracts that recognize the value healthcare providers offer, while also taking into account employers’ needs to keep rising costs in line with overall inflation.
Our Approach to Health: Advancing Whole-Person Health
Anthem believes improving health requires looking beyond traditional healthcare. Our approach centers on three commitments:
Redefining health by addressing physical, behavioral, and social factors.
Reimagining the health system through better use of data to support more personalized and equitable care.
Strengthening communities through partnerships that improve whole health.
For employers, this means addressing real workforce challenges — including stress, anxiety, chronic disease, caregiving responsibilities, food insecurity, and barriers to care — through proactive, coordinated support.
Anthem also focuses on community health, health equity, digitally enabled healthcare, and a consumer-centered health system that reinforces this whole-health approach.
Addressing Healthcare Costs: A Business-First View of Affordability
Employers need cost strategies that improve outcomes rather than simply shifting costs. Anthem’s approach focuses on reducing waste, preventing avoidable high-cost events, improving care coordination, and simplifying the member experience.
Integrating Physical, Behavioral, and Social Support. Coordinated care helps reduce unnecessary testing, avoidable emergency visits, delayed treatment, and unmanaged chronic conditions through earlier intervention and better integration.
Partnering to Improve Affordability, Quality, Equity, and Access. Anthem works across the healthcare ecosystem to address physical, behavioral, and social needs while improving value and access.
Making Healthcare Easier to Navigate. By reducing complexity and helping employees understand their options, Anthem supports better decisions, improved outcomes, and greater engagement — through tools such as our Sydney healthcare app.
Strengthening Communities as a Cost Strategy. Investments in maternal health, food as medicine, substance use disorder recovery, and emergency relief can improve workforce stability while helping reduce downstream healthcare costs.
What Employers Can Expect from Anthem in Maine
Anthem is committed to helping Maine employers improve access, enhance employee experiences, support whole-person health, and pursue affordability through smarter integration and collaboration.
As we approach nine decades of serving Maine, we continue building on the legacy that began in 1938 while preparing for the future. Healthcare will continue to evolve, but our commitment remains the same: helping Maine employers, employees, and communities thrive.
Anthem will continue to innovate and partner so healthcare delivers greater value, communities become healthier, and Maine employers can compete with a stronger, healthier workforce.
