Humana seeks integrated care

Bruce Broussard

President and CEO, Humana Inc.

Managed health-care company and insurer in Louisville, Ky.

Age: 50

Tenure: CEO since Jan. 1, president since Dec. 1, 2011.

No. of employees: 45,000.

No. of Humana members: 12 million medical, 8 million specialty.

Finances: $1.2 billion net income on FY2012 revenue of $39.1 billion.

Regular reads: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fortune, Cycling World, Sailing World.

Recent book: How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen.

On social media: Staying connected is very important. Humana has an internal blog, and when I post a question, we have 2,000 of our associates able to give me feedback. It's a wonderful way to get unfiltered, unbiased information. And I find the retrieval of news wrapped to individual needs [via Twitter's news feed] is much easier. I can go through my phone or iPad and get a sense of what's going on pretty quick.

His transition from president to CEO: It was great for me to have Mike McCallister as part of that process, who had been CEO since 2000 but had been with Humana for 38 years. Anytime you go through a change like that after so long, it's difficult for any person.

New CEO vs. old CEO:

There's not a significant cultural change. I'd say I'm more collaborative than Mike. I encourage diversity of thought and always find that multiple inputs make the solution much better. I think Mike was collaborative, but I probably take it to a different level. I am curious; I find that the more I know, the more helpful I can be. And approachable is another term that people would say.

Humana's new approach: We are advancing away from a fee-for-service model, where people don't really take responsibility for a patient's health, to an integrated model. So typically, you get paid for an X-ray or a physician visit, but you never get paid for the quality. We are moving towards somebody handling your care and getting paid for the quality and cost of it.

Trends toward integrated health care: We're becoming a health company versus a transactional company around insurance. Some [others] are just getting bigger. Hospitals are acquiring more physicians and using their size in the marketplace.

Helping members get healthy to lower costs:

What we're trying to do, and it sounds sort of Pollyanna, is to help people take their health seriously. We have a joint venture with Walmart where people get a 5 percent discount off of our services as a result of buying healthy foods. HumanaVitality is our rewards program. We give you a pedometer, and if you walk a certain number of steps, you get points [to redeem for prizes].

- Meeri Kim