Aetna Wins Health Plan Innovation Award; National Business Coalition on Health Honors Aetna's Efforts to Improve Diabetes Care for Hispanic/Latino Members.

HARTFORD, Conn. -- The National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH) recognized Aetna (NYSE: AET) yesterday with an eValue8(TM) Innovation Award for outreach work to support physicians treating Hispanic/Latino people with diabetes. The award was given to Aetna this week at the NBCH's 10th Annual Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.

NBCH is a non-profit, membership organization of more than 70 employer-based health care coalitions, representing over 10,000 employers across the United States. A particular focus of the coalition is to accelerate the nation's progress toward cost-effective, high quality health care and improve the value of health care spending. The NBCH eValue8 Awards recognize organizations that have implemented innovative, ground-breaking programs and provide a forum to communicate best practices.

"It is especially gratifying to be recognized by employers for programs which we truly believe respond to real needs in the health care system and are moving the needle on care quality," said Jim Foreman, Head of National Businesses for Aetna. "As major health care purchasers, NBCH employers have a powerful voice in the programming offered by health plans and we are pleased that this program met their steep quality standards."

The award-winning Aetna program involves a Diabetes Care Kit for physicians treating Hispanic or Latino patients with diabetes. According to the American Diabetes Association, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes is 1.5 times higher among Latinos than among non-Latino Caucasians.

The Aetna Diabetes Care Kit consists of an Emmy award winning video, brochures, fact sheets, chart stickers, a flip chart teaching aid and business reply cards to order more materials - all of which are available in both English and Spanish. The kit was mailed to nearly 9,000 physicians in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, New York, California and Arizona.

Aetna created the kit with financial support from Novo Nordisk to provide physicians with patient education materials dedicated to educating Hispanic/Latino patients about living with and caring for diabetes. Surveys were included in this kit and 57 percent of the physicians who responded said that prior to receiving the Aetna kit, they did not have access to diabetes related educational materials for their Hispanic/Latino patients.

"We share NBCH's commitment to improving the quality of health care delivered to their employees and our members," said Charles M. Cutler M.D., Aetna's chief medical officer. "The development and delivery of this kit reflects our continuing commitment to addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health care and enabling improvements in care quality. It also meets the significant need for outreach to this population, which is at risk of diabetes and its complications."

Of the more than 100 programs submitted for consideration, 12 were selected as finalists for the awards based on information submitted on "Best Practices and Innovations" as part of NBCH's 2005 eValue8 submission tool. The finalists were reviewed by a panel of judges from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, The Leapfrog Group, George Washington University and the Buyers Health Care Action Group. Based on creativity, effectiveness and the ability to be replicated, three winners were selected.

According to the NBCH, Innovation Award winners have demonstrated strategies to address some of the most difficult issues facing health systems and purchasers. By sharing these innovative programs with other health plans and purchasers, NBCH promotes improvement in community health systems across the country.

As one of the nation's leading providers of health care, dental, pharmacy, group life, disability and long-term care benefits, Aetna puts information and helpful resources to work for its approximately 14.65 million medical members, 13.03 million dental members, 9.34 million pharmacy members and 13.67 million group insurance members to help them make better informed decisions about their health care and protect their finances against health-related risks. Aetna provides easy access to cost-effective health care through a nationwide network of more than 700,000 health care professionals, including over 418,000 primary care and specialist doctors and 4,231 hospitals. For more information, please visit www.aetna.com. (Figures as of September 30, 2005)