Who they are
Florida Blue is the Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan of Florida — an independent BCBSA licensee and part of GuideWell, its parent organization. It is one of the largest single-state Blue plans in the country.
The behavioral health contracting entity
Florida Blue contracts with Lucet as its behavioral health administrator. Lucet is the rebrand of New Directions Behavioral Health, an independent behavioral health company — which makes this a third carve-out pattern: not a corporate sibling like Optum or Carelon, and not in-house like Aetna, but an external, independent behavioral health manager. Facilities may hold legacy New Directions paperwork; Lucet is the same entity. Lucet also administers behavioral health for other plans — several Blues and Medicare Advantage plans, per its own provider manual — a reminder that regional behavioral health administrators exist below the Carelon and Optum tier.
Levels of care
Florida Blue contracts across the behavioral health continuum — inpatient psychiatric, detoxification, residential treatment, partial hospitalization (PHP), intensive outpatient (IOP), and outpatient. Covered benefits vary by plan.
Websites & portals
- floridablue.com
Member and plan site.
- availity.com
Provider access for Florida Blue runs through Availity.
- lucethealth.com
Lucet — the behavioral health administrator; BH authorizations run through Lucet's WebPass.
Scope
Florida.
Notable context
One of the largest single-state Blues. The Lucet arrangement is the teaching example that carve-outs aren't always corporate siblings — a behavioral health network can be handed to an independent company.
State guides
Where Florida Blue appears in our state-by-state guide to the payer landscape:
Want to know if TierBench holds actual rate data for this payer?
See Payer CoverageContracting with this payer?
Book a 20-minute call and we'll walk through where your rates stand against the market — or explore the data yourself.