Jeb Dunkelberger has been named the new CEO of Sutter Health and Aetna Inc.’s jointly owned health plan, Sutter Health | Aetna.
Sutter Health | Aetna provides self-insured insurance plans to businesses and large organizations. It specializes in preferred provider organization offerings, which largely steer patients toward its in-network providers that include Sutter Health and Stanford Health Care.
Ownership of the joint venture is split 50-50, with Sacramento-based Sutter Health providing in-network doctors and hospitals, and Aetna, a unit of CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS), providing information technology and management.
Dunkelberger arrives at the health plan after a two-year stint leading sales and growth initiatives at a pair of Bay Area health care companies. He was the head of growth at San Mateo-based Notable, which provides a voice-powered health care platform, and an adviser and national vice president of growth at San Francisco-based Cricket Health, which provides nephrology and dialysis care.
His career prior to that included executive positions at health insurer Highmark Inc. — which is an affiliate of Blue Cross and Blue Shield — and medical supply and pharmaceutical company McKesson Corp. Dunkelberger holds master’s degrees related to health care leadership and policy from the University of Pennsylvania, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Cornell University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“We are excited for Jeb to lead Sutter Health | Aetna into the next phase of innovation and growth as more employers see the value the joint venture can bring to them and their workforce in terms of affordability and access to high-quality care,” said Phil Jackson, CEO of Health Plan Partnerships and Products at Sutter Health, in a written statement.
Sutter Health | Aetna’s previous CEO, Steve Wigginton, departed in May to take a new job with NovuHealth, a Minneapolis-based health care company. Wigginton had been with the health plan since its launch in 2018.
In his new role, Dunkelberger is set to oversee the expansion of Sutter Health | Aetna’s footprint and growth among the employers it provides insurance to.
The health plan’s first full year providing health insurance was 2019. Since then, it has expanded its footprint across 16 counties in Northern California. The health plan’s network includes 34 hospitals, more than 11,000 primary care physicians and specialists, 78 urgent care locations, and 40 walk-in clinics that are operated by Sutter Health and Stanford Health Care.
Source: Biz Journals