Aetna Wins Innovation and Excellence Award for Integrated Diabetes Program; America's Health Insurance Plans Foundation honors Aetna's efforts to integrate disease management services

Business Wire, March 7, 2006

HARTFORD, Conn. -- America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) recognized Aetna (NYSE:AET) yesterday with the 2006 Large/Affiliated Innovation and Excellence Award: Chronic Care for the company's integrated approach to helping members with diabetes manage their condition. The award was given to Aetna this week at the AHIP Foundation's Innovation and Excellence Awards Dinner at the 2006 National Policy Forum in Washington, D.C.

"This award recognizes the strong foundation of Aetna's integrated approach to helping our members achieve optimal health," said Charles M. Cutler, M.D., head of National Quality Management at Aetna. "Using feedback gained during focus groups with consumers and care providers, we have successfully integrated services to address our members' educational, psychosocial and cultural needs. This approach enables us to support each member as a whole person with overlapping and connected health needs, rather than focusing solely on their chronic condition. Further, it reflects our commitment to offering members with diabetes a range of innovative outreach and programs."

Approximately 6 percent of Aetna's HMO-based members, or about 180,000 members with diabetes, benefit from these award-winning outreach services, receiving consistent reinforcement in their diabetes self-management efforts. Components of Aetna's integrated approach to helping support members with diabetes include:

--  Member Education and Support

        Helping members understand their condition, and the importance
        of monitoring their health and following their
        doctor-prescribed treatment plan is a core component of our
        integrated diabetes management services, and includes nurse
        outreach and support through our disease and case management
        programs, direct mail reminders, education and self-management
        tools, newsletters and web-based education and tools.

    --  Psychosocial Support

        Behavioral health issues can complicate an underlying medical
        condition and lead to ineffective self-management. Members in
        our diabetes disease management program are routinely screened
        for depression and referred to our Medical/Psychiatric Case
        Management program as needed for support with co-morbid
        depression, which frequently occurs among people living with a
        chronic condition like diabetes.

    --  Cultural Diversity

        Recognizing that the identical diabetes management plan will
        not suit all people, Aetna provides culturally sensitive
        materials to members and participating physicians to help them
        understand the disease and develop a treatment plan they can
        stick with for life. The Aetna Diabetes Care Kit for
        physicians treating Hispanic or Latino patients with diabetes
        received an eValue8(TM) Innovation Award from the National
        Business Coalition on Health last fall.

    --  Physician Education and Support

        According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
        more than 14.6 million Americans have been diagnosed with
        diabetes, and 6.2 million Americans suffer from undiagnosed
        diabetes. Health plans can play a key role in supporting
        physicians in caring for their diabetic patients. Aetna
        provides direct mail patient educational materials and
        reminders, office tracking tools and rosters of Aetna members
        potentially in need of service.

    --  Community Collaboration

        Aetna works with local diabetes coalitions to promote
        compliance with recommended American Diabetes Association
        guidelines. In the Maryland/Washington D.C./Virginia market,
        Aetna implemented a pilot with the Network to Improve
        Community Health (NICH) by providing participating physician
        offices and lab draw stations with the NICH Patient Guidelines
        for Diabetes Care brochure to educate their patients.

"It's such a great honor to have our efforts recognized externally against more than 35 other judged entries," said Judy Langley, health care quality manager for National Quality Management (NQM). "It's very rewarding to see that our integrated programs proved to be more innovative and differentiated in this competition."

Aetna's integrated programs have led to demonstrated success, as measured by the HEDIS(R) Comprehensive Diabetes Care measure components, Aetna's annual physician and office manager surveys, member and physician/office manager focus groups and the Med/Psych SF12(R) Health Survey. Aetna significantly improved HEDIS rates of cholesterol (LDL) control (less than 100) by 14.2 percent, nephropathy screening by 12.9 percent and the SF12 Mental Health Component by 44.9 percent.

The AHIP Foundation is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), educational, scientific, and research arm of AHIP. It strives to create, support, and enhance programs throughout the health plan industry that improve quality, effectiveness, and value in health care through research, education, information sharing, and other activities which reward exemplary practices by individuals and organizations.