Primary Care Crucial to Health Care System, Says Aetna Exec

Immediately following a July 6 meeting with high-level Aetna executives at Academy headquarters in Leawood, Kan., Timothy Komoto, M.D., of Mendota Heights, Minn., a member of the AAFP Board of Directors who represented the Academy at the meeting, pinned down the overriding message he'd heard: "There was a recognition that the primary care system is important," he said. "I am encouraged that a major insurance company is willing to work with us to support that."

The meeting presented yet another opportunity for the Academy to speak freely with a large insurance company about issues that directly affect family physicians. Aetna is the fourth insurer to visit the Academy for such a dialogue.

In a subsequent phone interview, Aetna's Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Troyen Brennan, M.D., J.D., M.P.H, reiterated sentiments he expressed at the meeting: "Aetna recognizes that a well-run health care system has to have a well-run primary care system," he said. "We also recognize that payment reform is necessary for primary care to reach its full potential in terms of providing high-quality patient care."

Brennan, an internist, joined Aetna in February. He said he was hired to continue "reaching out to and working with the physician community and trying to understand ways in which we can collaborate."

Brennan expressed an interest in TransforMED, the Academy's practice redesign initiative, and its recently launched national demonstration project. He said Aetna leaders think the TransforMED model of care "is an excellent model for the way that primary care should be practiced, and we want to support it however we can."

Komoto said, "While we're not certain where Aetna's interest in TransforMED might lead, the Academy is pleased that Aetna recognizes the value of the TransforMED demonstration project -- or any demonstration project -- that helps to further validate the value of primary care to the health care system."

Other topics covered during the meeting included

Chris Jagmin, M.D., Aetna medical director for policy and administration, and Linda Stevens, senior network manager for Kansas and Missouri, also represented Aetna at the meeting. AAFP EVP Douglas Henley, M.D., and staff members from the Socioeconomics Division had seats at the table, as well.

Komoto said the AAFP and its members have a responsibility "to work with industry to find common areas upon which we can agree and then to work out our differences for the betterment of the health care system."

"Aetna looks to the Academy as a leading organization to accomplish that," he added.