Each year, HealthPartners hosts our Annual Meeting. We invite and welcome our members to learn a bit more about us. And we ask that they also come to share their own perspectives on health and coverage.

Our Annual Meeting is an important part of HealthPartners. We are the only health insurer in Minnesota to host one of these events. And we do so because we are governed by our consumers. (We are actually the largest nonprofit health care organization in the country that can make that claim!) Our Annual Meeting gives people with our health plans a chance to ask questions. And it allows them to talk directly with our leaders. We’ve had as many as 675 of our members show up per year!

“In our pursuit of healthiness, we know good health is not just the absence of disease. Getting good care in a clinic or hospital is important. But it is only a small part of what makes us healthy,” said Andrea Walsh, HealthPartners President and CEO. “Health also has to do with healthy habits. It has to do with a good education. Ant it has to do with having a good environment to live in. There are many social determinants that influence overall health and well-being.”

Helping address the social determinants of health: Why our Annual Meeting always begins with a health fair

The health fair gives our members a chance to get more familiar with HealthPartners programs and services that are available to them. Like, did you know we have an online program to help better manage stress and anxiety called Beating the Blues that is free to anyone with HealthPartners insurance? Or did you know that HealthPartners covers the cost of Medication Therapy Management for most members who have pharmacy coverage with us?

Our organization’s care specialties also have a presence at the health fair. Everyone from those working for our online clinic, virtuwell.com, to specialists at our state-of-the-art HealthPartners Neuroscience Center to pet therapy dogs that volunteer in our clinics, hospitals and hospice care programs are there to chat. They also hand out resources and helpful giveaways (like back massagers and boxes of tissues).

Each year, a few of our volunteer pet therapy dogs attend our Annual Meeting, where members are invited to snap photos with them.

What’s discussed at HealthPartners’ Annual Meeting

In the meeting portion of the event, we unveil our Annual Report. Members hear from our leaders about the key work we have been focused on over the past year. And we share our financial performance, too. We want our members to know how we are delivering on the Triple Aim. And we also want to be transparent with them about the work we still have to do. We aim to share as much as we can about our plans to tackle that work in the years ahead.

2018 Annual Meeting highlights

  • We were proud to share our results from Minnesota Community Measurement’s 2017 Health Care Quality Report. HealthPartners ranks among the best in the state!
  • We introduced Todd Hofheins, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. He joined HealthPartners in January 2018.
  • We showed how we’re making big strides in telemedicine and e-visits to provide low-cost options, including through services like Virtuwell.
  • We gave examples of how we’re tackling the opioid epidemic. Bret Haake, MD, Regions Hospital Chief Medical Officer, was our keynote speaker on this topic. Over the course of 2017, we prescribed 21 percent fewer painkillers than we had the previous year. We’re making it easier to safely dispose of old, unused medicine. And our innovative approaches to treating pain are consistently being proven to work better than pills. Physicians Neck & Back Center’s Leslie Hillman, MD, led a workshop about how to prevent and manage back pain. And TRIA’s Sarah Martin, PA-C, led members in a short session of yoga therapy to show how it can help with healing.

2017 Annual Meeting highlights

  • This was Mary Brainerd’s last Annual Meeting before retiring. She had been HealthPartners’ president and CEO for 15 years. Members thanked her for her work with a standing ovation.

  • Andrea Walsh, who would be the next president and CEO, introduced our new summary measure of health and well-being. This measure looks at three things to gauge a person’s health and well-being. Current health is one. Ability to maintain health is another. And life satisfaction is the last. Andrea encouraged members to have an “attitude of gratitude.” And she gave them a tracking log where they could write down things they were grateful for.
  • We gave members a taste of the Sportsology exhibit that HealthPartners sponsors at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Thank you to all our members who attend the Annual Meeting! We look forward to seeing you there year after year.