LONG BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SCAN Health Plan has received a special commendation from the Long Beach City Council in recognition of its 40 years of dedicated service to the Long Beach community and to the senior population, both locally and beyond. The commendation was presented at last night’s council meeting by Councilwoman Stacy Rose Mungo and was accepted by SCAN Chief Executive Officer Chris Wing on behalf of the not-for-profit Medicare Advantage health plan and its more than 1,000 employees, a quarter of which live in Long Beach.
As noted in both the commendation and in Wing’s remarks, SCAN was founded in Long Beach in 1977 by a group of senior activists who expressed frustration with the lack of social services available locally and were looking for social services to wrap around their healthcare that would keep them living independently.
“They were determined to create a new system of care that allowed seniors to remain in their homes and communities – where they desperately wanted to stay – even if their declining health qualified them for a nursing home,” said Wing. “The City of Long Beach responded. Officials at the Division of Senior Citizen Affairs in the Long Beach Health Department called on area providers and not-for-profit groups to join forces and form the Senior Care Action Network. Today that organization is known simply as SCAN, and our mission hasn’t changed over the last 40 years.”
The city’s commendation to SCAN recognized those local, collaborative beginnings as well as SCAN’s “ongoing pursuit of its founding mission to keep seniors healthy and independent by providing comprehensive healthcare to its own members as well as vital community services to thousands of other seniors in our area facing health challenges.” It also applauded SCAN for continuing to be a “national leader in advocating on behalf of seniors for sensible public policy that keeps healthcare affordable, accessible and focused on the highest quality measures.”
“We are extremely grateful to Councilwoman Mungo and the entire City Council for this moving commendation,” said Wing. “As we celebrate our 40th anniversary, we see an incredible opportunity to find new ways for providers, health plans, government and academia to come together and positively shape what it means to age successfully in the community. Long Beach is the perfect place to start, and we look forward to working with the council as well as other local leaders to make our city truly a model for independent aging.”
SCAN Health Plan is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit Medicare Advantage plans with nearly 170,000 members in California. Part of the SCAN family, SCAN Health Plan is committed to keeping seniors healthy and independent. For more information, visit scanhealthplan.com, visit us on Facebook at facebook.com/scanhealthplan or follow us on Twitter at @scanhealthplan.
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