Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM), a company that has been around since 1961, was founded by David Jones and Wendell Cherry as a nursing home company in Louisville, Kentucky. At that time, Humana was known as Extendicare; eventually becoming recognized as the largest nursing home company in the United States. After divesting the nursing home chain, Extendicare moved into purchasing hospitals in 1972, becoming the largest hospital company of the 1980s.

In 1974, Extendicare's name was changed to Humana Inc. to reflect the new direction in which the company was moving.

During the mid-1970s, Humana experienced tremendous growth both organically and through the take over of American Medicorp Inc. in 1978, doubling the company's sized. Then using a fast-track construction phase, Humana was able to complete and open one hospital a month in the mid-1970s. The company's use of an overlapping process compressed the scheduled construction time, and enabled Humana to develop and build such hospital projects as the double-corridor model faster than the industry norm. This highly efficient, innovative design allowed the nurses' station to be opened up, keeping the nurses close to their patients at all times.

During the 1980s, Humana evolved in the American health care system by not only developing flexible health care plans, but also by marketing health insurance. In 1985, Humana created the Humana Heart Institute for Dr. Robert Jarvik and Dr. William DeVries to pioneer artificial heart research in Louisville, Kentucky.


In the 1990s, Humana moved into consumer heath benefits. In 1993, Humana spun off hospital operations from the health insurance operations. A new company called Galen Health Care Inc emerged, and soon after, Galen merged with Columbia/HCA. During the spring of 1998 United failed in an attempt to acquire Humana after there was an almost billion dollar quarterly loss. In 1999, Humana jumped head-first into pioneering ground work for consumer-driven health care. The first service was launched on September 11, 2001.

Launched in 2001, Availity empowered physicians and other health care professionals with business solutions to conduct daily health plans. Humana has built a partnership with Nagivy, Inc., a subsidiary of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, Inc.
In 2003, Humana began to market health savings account services to individuals and companies, partnering with Richard Branson's Virgin in 2005. Today The Business Health Care Group of Southeast Wisconsin (BHCGSW) represents both large and small employers. There were more than 200 member companies and over 150,000 health care consumers when they chose Humana as their administrative partner to drive Southeastern Wisconsin's health care cost to average in the Midwest in 2005. This strategy included customer education, providing cost and quality information on health care providers, structuring accountability of all stakeholders, and collective purchasing.

Humana has become one of the most recognized names in the markets, and administers health benefit consumer services. It is also recognized as the largest Fortune 500 Company headquartered in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. With $21.4 billion in revenue, Humana has a market cap of over $13 billion dollars. Employing over 25,000 "associates" nationwide, with a customer base of over $11.5 million, Humana is located in all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico. In Western Europe, there is international business interest. In the March of 2007 issue, Fortune Magazine recognized Humana as one of the Top 5 Most Admired Healthcare Companies in the United States.

Humana made two business decisions in 2006; one was an aggressive education campaign to market Medicare Advantage (MA) and Prescription Drug Plans (PDP) nationwide for eligible Medicare consumers, once the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act in U.S. Congress passed. With purposeful alliance with State Farm and Wal-Mart, Humana did a cross country RV tour, signing up approximately 5 million consumers, enabling Humana's industry market for senior products to reach #2. In the same year, Humana also launched RightSource, a national mail-order retail pharmacy business.