Aetna Inc. (AET) has announced that it will start offering Aetna Vision Preferred plan, a student health insurance product, from the upcoming school year. This plan will be offered in 20 U.S. states, along with other plans.
Aetna Vision Preferred plan will enable members to save money on all types of care related to eyes, such as routine eye exams, contact lenses, eye glasses, eye glass accessories and LASIK eye surgery.
The plan has a network that offers access to more than 52,000 vision offices and retailers, which also include top six retailers such as LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, JCPenney Optical and Target Optical.
Concurrently, Aetna announced that Aetna Innovation labs will work upon data and best practices to improve healthcare services provided to members.
Following the announcement of the health care reform, which focused on improving healthcare quality and reducing costs, Aetna has become very proactive in innovating ways to achieve these above mentioned objectives.
Through Aetna Innovation Labs, the innovation engine, the company is trying to stay ahead of the rapidly changing marketplace. The program is led by Michael Palmer, who joined Aetna in September 2011. He has a 25-year career of consulting in IT and business strategy, assessment and execution, large-scale transformation initiatives, and organizational design.
Aetna Innovation Labs has already started working upon improving cancer. It is one of its initial projects and the Innovation Lab is trying to make use of all the technology that can lead to best clinical outcomes in cancer care management.
Its second project is related to At-risk for Metabolic Syndrome and Heart Diseases. For this project Aetna has partnered with GNS Healthcare. While Aetna will provide data sets, GNS will contribute its technology platform to discover the types of interventions that can drive better outcomes for those who are prone to risks related to metabolic syndrome.
Aetna is working hard to keep pace with the rapidly changing health insurance market place, which has become very customer focused. Other players gearing up with the changing insurance market landscape are UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) and CIGNA Corp. (CI).
Aetna currently retains a Zacks #3 Rank, which translates into a short-term Hold rating. We are also maintaining our long-term Neutral recommendation on the shares.
AETNA INC-NEW (AET): Free Stock Analysis Report
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UNITEDHEALTH GP (UNH): Free Stock Analysis Report
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