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. Aetna has heavily invested in many new product sets as well in 2011, especially in the individual consumer segment. As such many small employers are now adding individual product alongside their employer-sponsored offering.
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 2011 have been consumer-directed, high-deductible health plans. With these types of plans employers may couple them with health savings accounts or HSA, health reimbursement arrangements or HRA, and even flexible savings accounts or FSA. These tax-favored vehicles may work with a myriad of plan offerings including Preferred Provider Organizations or PPOs, Point-of-Service plans or POS, and even Exclusive Provider Organizations EPOs. In order for an HSA to be implemented, an IRS-qualified high-deductible health plan must be the underlying insurance. Their HMO product currently is not the best priced plan in the market, although in New York City and the burroughs, Aetna introduced in 2010 the Community-based products. These products have a very paired down network, thought the pricepoint is well under the traditional HMO plans.
Aetna is one the the remaining national network carriers in the United States. With massive consolidation in the industry, Aetna, United Healthcare, and Wellpoints Blue Cross and Anthem plans are the 3 biggest carriers. Cigna Healthcare has positioned itself differently in 2010 and 2011 to focus more on their core market of large, multi-state self-funded and hybrid funded markets
