JPMorgan Chase Reveals Employer-Sponsored Health Plan Goals

May 21, 2021 - JPMorgan Chase has launched its new healthcare business unit, Morgan Health, which will aim to improve employer-sponsored health plan benefits among other goals.

The employer will invest $250 million in the new business unit’s efforts and plans to serve only JPMorgan Chase employees and their dependents initially. However, the employer ultimately hopes to serve as a model for other employers to follow.

“JPMorgan Chase has been focused on improving healthcare for its employees for many years,” explained Dan Mendelson, chief executive officer of Morgan Health.

“We are going to take what we’ve learned and accelerate healthcare innovation in the employer-sponsored healthcare market, partnering with and investing in companies that share our goals, and measuring key health outcomes to show what works.”

The employer named three key goals for the new healthcare business unit.

The first goal was the $250 million investment that JPMorgan Chase will use to enact improvements in its employer-sponsored healthcare solutions.

Second, the company stated that it would bolster its employer-sponsored health plan benefits. According to the press release, JPMorgan Chase will collaborate with healthcare organizations to provide better benefits. Already a couple of future collaborators have applauded the launch of this new business unit.

“We are looking forward to working with Morgan Health,” said Karen Lynch, president and chief executive officer of CVS Health. “We have a long-standing relationship with JPMorgan Chase and will continue to collaborate to make healthcare better for all employers.”

Finally, the company’s third objective is to promote health equity.

“COVID has shed light on both the greatness of our healthcare system and its challenges,” said Peter Scher, vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase who oversees Morgan Health. “The firm has been investing in developing solutions to address social and economic challenges over the past 10 years. We plan to take what we’ve learned there and apply it to healthcare.”

The press release underscored JPMorgan Chase’s conviction that the healthcare system is broken and that collaboration is key to improving outcomes.

“We need to try to make the U.S. healthcare system work better,” said Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase.

“We have the best healthcare in the world in terms of doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, but we certainly do not have the best outcomes. Many of our problems have been around for a long time and are not aging well. There are ways we can make significant improvements and we intend to take a disciplined approach to solving some of these issues in a meaningful way.”

The business unit’s headquarters will be located in Washington, DC. The company already covers 285,000 employees and dependents under its employer-sponsored health plan. JPMorgan Chase will partner with providers, health insurers, and other healthcare organizations to propel its solutions.

The news comes less than half a year after JPMorgan, Amazon, and Berkshire dissolved their healthcare venture known as Haven.

The companies intended to use the knowledge gained from the venture to launch health solutions for their own employees, a spokeswoman indicated at the time. She also noted that the companies might continue to collaborate in the future as they served their own employee populations.

The JPMorgan Chase press release made no mention of this previous arrangement nor did it name Amazon or Berkshire as potential partners in its future endeavors.

JPMorgan Chase is not the only major employer to make this type of announcement recently.

Less than a year before JPMorgan Chase revealed its plans with Morgan Health, Verily—Alphabet’s life sciences and healthcare subsidiary—and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions launched their own health insurer. The insurer, formerly called Coefficient Insurance Company (Coefficient) and now named “Granular Insurance,” closed its transaction in March 2021.