Humana
Type: Public (NYSE: HUM)
Founded: Louisville, Kentucky (1961)
Headquarters: Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Key people: David Jones and Wendell Cherry, co-founders - Mike McCallister, president and CEO
Industry: Health insurance
Website: www.humana.com
General Information
Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM), founded in 1961 in Louisville, Kentucky, is a Fortune 500 company that markets and administers health benefit consumer services. With a customer base of over 11.5 million in the United States, the company is the largest (by revenues) Fortune 500 company headquartered in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and has a market cap of over US $13 billion, $25.2 billion in revenue, and over 26,000 employees nationwide. Humana markets its health benefit consumer services in all 50 U.S. states, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and has international business interests in Western Europe.1961-1993
1961-1993: Nursing homes and hospitalsThe company was founded by David Jones and Wendell Cherry as a nursing home company in 1961. Then known as Extendicare, the company became the largest nursing home company in the United States. Extendicare later divested the nursing home chain and moved into purchasing hospitals in 1972, becoming the world's largest hospital company in the 1980s.The corporate name was changed to Humana Inc. in 1974. Humana experienced tremendous growth in the years that followed, both organically and through the takeover of American Medicorp Inc. in 1978, which doubled the company's size. During the mid-1970s, the company used a fast-track construction process to complete and open one hospital a month. This accelerated construction schedule, which compressed time by overlapping processes, allowed Humana to develop hospital projects faster than the industry norm. During this construction boom, Humana developed the double corridor model for hospital construction. This highly efficient design minimized the distance between patients and nurses by placing nursing support services in the interior of the building with patient rooms surrounding the perimeter.Humana brought the pioneering artificial heart research of Dr. Robert Jarvik and Dr. William DeVries to Louisville, creating the Humana Heart Institute in 1985.The 1990s marked Humana's transition into a consumer health benefits company. Humana spun off its hospital operations from the health insurance operations in 1993, creating Galen Health Care, which then merged with Columbia/HCA.