Aetna is a large, national health plan provider in the United States and is publicly traded on the NYSE, ticker AET. Products served include health, dental, group life, and disability plans, and they serve over 17 million medical insurance members, 14 million dental insurance members, and over 11 million pharmacy plan members.

In the Aetna national network, currently they have more than 890,000 health care professionals, including over 500,000 primary care and specialty care providers.

Some of the better selling Aetna products in 2009 have been the Aetna Managed Choice POS plan, which offers both gatekeeper models, or require referrals, as well as the NG POS, which gives the same style benefits but removes the need for primary care referrals to specialists. The Aetna HMO product currently is not the best priced plan in the market, though they do remain very competitive with both POS and HMO products utilizing their high-deductible health plan filing, working on conjunction with H.S.A’s. As such the HMO product is actually filed as an EPO.

Aetna offers many different types of medical plan alternatives including HRA, and H.S.A options, as well as traditional PPO, POS, HMO and EPO plans. Aetna spends lots of its resources and invests significantly in disease management and medical management programs across its vast network, and is consistently working on tools to assist its members in making informed healthcare and financial decisiosn.