Aetna’s Mark Bertolini Helping To Transform The Healthcare Model

Mark T. Bertolini is chairman and CEO of Aetna, a Fortune 50 health insurance company serving an estimated 46.5 million people with operations in North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The Hartford, Conn.-based company is embarking on numerous initiatives to help transform the health care industry – and Bertolini is very much leading the charge.

Perhaps the most critical push is the transition to “valued-based care,” in which insurers work with health care providers to help them deliver better coordinated care that improves outcomes and reduces costs.

For example Aetna and Virginia-based health care system Inova in 2013 formed Innovation Health, and the coordinated approach already is producing 21 percent fewer 30-day re-admissions and a 15 percent decrease in costs.

Then there’s The Healthiest Cities & Counties Challenge, offered by the Aetna Foundation, the American Public Health Association and the National Association of Counties, in partnership with CEOs for Cities.

Bertolini talked about the challenge at The Atlantic’s 2017 Washington Ideas Forum. Fifty finalists are participating in the challenge, which will award $1.5 million in prizes to communities that show measurable improvements in health indicators and social determinants of health.

“We’re trying to understand the demography disease burden and social and economic patterns of a community and say, ‘OK, what does the system need to be like to support that?’” Bertolini said. “Then we can design a system that works for that community and we can deliver it in the most efficient way possible.”

Bertolini has been placed on Modern Healthcare’s 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare, Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders and The Politico 50 – “thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics.”

Mark Bertolini, is No. 43 on Chief Executive and RHR International’s CEO1000 Tracker, a ranking of the top 1,000 public/private companies.

Chairman (since April, 2011) and CEO (since November, 2010), Aetna

Previous Position: President

Company start date: 2003

First Position at Company: Head of Aetna’s Specialty Products

Age: 61

Education: An undergraduate degree in business administration/finance from Wayne State University and a MBA in finance from Cornell University.