Company Overview

This Hartford, Connecticut–based insurance company is the leading health care benefits organization in the United States. Aetna’s services are offered through a network of more than 752,000 health care provider facilities, including some 442,000 primary care providers and specialists and 4,433 hospitals. In 1996, Aetna sold its property/casualty business and merged with the managed care firm U.S. Healthcare. In 1998, the company purchased the health care businesses of both New York Life and Prudential. The company embarked on an overhaul beginning in 1999, selling off its global health and financial services businesses and refocusing on its core business of providing employee benefits services. Since 2000, Aetna has increased its domestic network of health care providers and pharmacies. The company purchased the Chickering Group, which sells policies underwritten by Aetna Life Insurance Company to college and university students. It also recently acquired a pair of its former vendors: Magellan Heath Services and ActiveHealth Management.

To deal with rising health care costs and shift decision-making responsibility onto consumers, the company has been expanding its health plan offerings. Its Aetna HealthFund consumer-directed plans combine high deductible plans with medical expense funds that accrue money each year. It has also introduced Web-based access to personal health records, giving members the ability to view their medical histories and giving them tools to make health care decisions. Additionally, subsidiary ActiveHealth uses technology and data analytics to provide disease management programs, clinical decision support, and other services that identify at-risk plan members and help get the right care to patients before they need hospitalization or other expensive procedures.