Centene CEO Sarah London says Medicaid patients are the last to benefit from health care innovation. She wants AI to change that
Source: Fortune ·
The head of the country’s largest Medicaid insurer wants to see AI impact medical access deserts, not just more billing.
From the source
The latest innovations and breakthroughs in health care don’t get routed to the sickest people, they usually go to the deepest pockets. “Most of the venture money in health care goes into where the money is, and the money isn’t in Medicaid,” Centene CEO Sarah London said on Monday at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit. “That means that underserved communities don’t actually benefit from innovation first. Sometimes they never do.” Centene, a $33 billion company based in Missouri, is built around those very communities. The company runs Medicaid plans in 29 states and sells individual marketplace plans and Medicare Advantage. London, a mainstay of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women and the youngest CEO in the Fortune 500, said Centene’s 26 million members are “among the poorest, sickest members of the communities that we all live in,” she told Fortune senior writer Sheryl Estrada. London, who took the CEO role four years ago at age 41, said she joined Centene because she believed health…