Blue Distinction Specialty Care for Providers

Blue Distinction Specialty Care is a national designation program recognizing providers that demonstrate expertise in delivering quality and affordable health care to meet consumers’ specialty care needs — safely, effectively and cost-efficiently.

To earn a Blue Distinction designation, providers and/or facilities must meet strict, pre-determined quality standards developed by medical experts and providers.

The program includes two levels of designation:

The highly respected Blue Distinction designation affirms that your practice demonstrates expertise in delivering both higher quality and more affordable specialty care. The designation helps consumers and referring physicians to easily locate Blue Distinction providers using the Blue Distinction Center Finder.

A Blue Distinction designation provides consumers and their referring physicians with the information they need to select a provider recognized for delivering quality, cost-effective specialty care. According to research conducted on consumer healthcare decision-making, consumers are more likely to select a higher-quality, lower-cost provider than a high-cost provider when both quality and cost information are shown in tandem.

Employers adopt many strategies to help improve the quality of health care for their employees, while also managing cost. Some of these strategies may include offering richer benefits to employees who use designated Blue Distinction providers and adopting narrow networks that feature these higher-quality, lower-cost providers.