Mark Bertolini, former chief executive of health insurance giant Aetna Inc. and hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, will take the helm of Oscar Health Inc. as it seeks to turn a profit and carve out a role as a technology supplier in the healthcare industry.
Mr. Bertolini, 66 years old, will take the post effective next Monday, the company said. He will succeed Mario Schlosser, 44, who co-founded Oscar in 2012 with Joshua Kushner and will take the new title of president of technology, reporting to Mr. Bertolini.
Mr. Schlosser will also remain on Oscar’s board, which Mr. Bertolini will join, the company said.
Mr. Bertolini said he would initially focus on ensuring Oscar meets its goal of having a profitable insurance business this year and full-company profitability in 2024. Beyond that, he said, he thinks the company can supply technology tools to help doctors and health systems interact with patients and manage their care, a different approach than some large insurers that have been more focused on buying up doctor groups, clinics and other assets.
“The digital platform has an opportunity to really change healthcare,” he said. “What we’re thinking about is, how can we use it to enable the provider system instead of owning them.”
Still, that would pit Oscar against many of the largest companies in the industry, including UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s Optum arm, Elevance Health Inc. and Cigna Group.
Mr. Bertolini was a longtime health-insurance official who became chief executive of Aetna in 2010. He sold Aetna, one of the country’s biggest health insurers, to CVS Health Inc. in 2018 for nearly $70 billion. He left the CVS board in 2020.
In early 2022, he became co-CEO of Bridgewater, stepping down earlier this month. Mr. Bertolini said his stint as chief executive there was always intended to be limited.
He has been advising Oscar for the past 18 months, Mr. Schlosser said.
“I don’t have too many more of these opportunities to change the system that I’ve known since the beginning of my career back in 1983,” Mr. Bertolini said.
Oscar, of New York, has said it is using technology to make the experience of its roughly 1.15 million members simpler and more frictionless. Most of its members are enrolled in individual and small-employer plans, including a product it offers with Cigna.
The company, which has never posted a profitable year, reported an accumulated deficit of $2.6 billion at the end of 2022. It had about $4 billion in revenue last year and posted a loss of about $610 million.
Last year, Oscar said it would pull insurance operations out of Arkansas and Colorado. It said last August that a Florida health plan to which it was supplying administrative and technology services had terminated their deal.