Aetna Earns Top Honors For Helping Employees Achieve Healthy Lifestyles

HARTFORD, Conn., July 12, 2012 — Aetna (NYSE: AET) announced that it has received top honors for its dedication to helping its employees achieve and maintain healthy, active lifestyles.  The National Business Group on Health, a non-profit association of large U.S. employers, recognized Aetna with the highest Platinum honor for the 2012 Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles awards plus a distinction for the Best Stress Management Intervention program.

“Aetna is firmly committed to the health and well-being of our employees, and we continue to develop new, engaging programs to encourage employees and their family members to achieve and maintain their optimal state of health,” said Elease Wright, senior vice president, Human Resources.  “As a health plan, we also work with our employer customers across the country to help them achieve wellness goals with their employees. When Aetna learns what motivates and helps our own employees, we share that information with our customers.”  

Helen Darling, president and CEO of the National Business Group on Health, commented:  “We are very pleased to recognize Aetna for its ongoing commitment to providing lifestyle improvement programs that encourage healthy lifestyles for their employees.  Aetna and its management team should be proud for their dedication and recognizing the importance of promoting and maintaining a healthy workforce. We congratulate them on receiving this award.”

Aetna offers employees a variety of wellness programs and resources including:

• Get Active Aetna, a popular 16-week wellness program that offers prizes to motivate employees to eat healthy and exercise;
• Healthy Lifestyles Incentive program, which offers financial incentives for exercising and eating healthy;
• Metabolic Syndrome program, which measures employees’ risk for certain conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes; and
• Virtual Wellness Center, a computer-based resource that offers a virtual kitchen and a virtual fitness center, where animated instructors lead workouts that vary by intensity.

Aetna received the stress management recognition for its Mind-Body Stress Reduction programs which include Mindfulness at WorkTM and ViniyogaTM Stress Management. These programs have shown significant results in a recent study with Duke Integrative Medicine, proving their effectiveness on perceived stress, productivity, pain, sleep and cardiac health.

The 2012 Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles awards were announced at the Leadership Summit sponsored by the National Business Group on Health’s Institute on Innovation in Workforce Well-being. The top Platinum award is given to companies with established “healthy weight, healthy lifestyles” programs with measurable success and documented outcomes.

About Aetna
Aetna is one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits companies, serving approximately 36.1 million people with information and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their health care. Aetna offers a broad range of traditional, voluntary and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmacy, dental, behavioral health, group life and disability plans, and medical management capabilities, Medicaid health care management services and health information technology services. Our customers include employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups and expatriates. For more information, see www.aetna.com. 

About the National Business Group on Health
The National Business Group on Health is the nation's only non-profit, membership organization of large employers devoted exclusively to finding innovative and forward-thinking solutions to their most important health care and related benefits issues and to being the voice for large employers on national health care issues. The Business Group, whose 345 members include 64 of the Fortune 100, identifies, develops and shares best practices in health benefits, disability, health and productivity, related paid time off and work/life balance issues. Business Group members provide health coverage for more than 55 million U.S. workers, retirees and their families. For more information, visit www.businessgrouphealth.org.