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With its new medical savings accounts, Aetna is embracing an idea that could turn managed care on its ear. Introduced in September, the Aetna HealthFund isn’t about insuring against routine medical costs or controlling access to care. Instead, it’s a “consumer-driven” plan designed to give individuals more choice but also
Headquarters: 32 Wilson Boulevard 100, Addison, AL 35540 Phone: (256) 747-9800 Business: Builds, sells, finances and insures manufactured homes Chief Information Officer: Jay Wilson Recent financials: Posted a net loss of $14 million on sales of $364 million in fiscal 2001 Challenge faced: Find ways to eliminate redundant service calls,
Aetna Chief Executive John W. Rowe, a gerontologist by training, was hired two years ago to heal one of the nation’s oldest companies. The big insurer is showing signs of recovery under his care, reporting second-quarter operating income of $91.3 million after turning its first operating profit since 2000 in
The downsizing that has forced it to scale back its technology investing isn’t unique to Cavalier Homes. The downsizing has affected the larger companies in the manufactured home-building business as well—companies like Clayton Homes, Palm Harbor Homes and the industry leader, Champion Enterprises. Indeed, while the overall real-estate market has
Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) processes paper claims for Aetna, scanning documents and then shipping the data along with an image of the original to an overseas processing center for quality control. Much of this work is done in Ghana, where workers compare the claims data to the image of the
Like a lot of technology companies, SAP’s stock has taken a hit. It’s fallen from $58 in July 2000 to $18 this year, a drop of 69%. The cumulative wealth of its shareholders has fallen from $63 billion at the end of 1999 to $24 billion. But, unlike a lot
Integrate (Among Other Things, to Make Sure Duplicate Payments Cease) Aetna’s customer and profit woes largely revolve around its ability to process claims fairly, efficiently and cheaply. “Reducing the labor associated with paying claims is a critical lever with regard to being profitable,” says Brad Holmes, an analyst with Forrester
Automate (It’ll Save at Least $8m a Year—And Probably a Lot More) Key to speedier processing of claims and cutting overhead is receiving claims electronically. On average, claims cost $5 to $15 each to process manually and $1 electronically. In other words, Aetna saves at least $4 every time it
Repair Relationships (Its adversarial stance hath made Aetna sickly. Insurer, heal thyself) Automating claims processing is an overdue solution to an old problem: The need to exchange information in smart ways. Now, that information needs to be put at the fingertips of health care customers, so they once again can