Memorial Healthcare System in Broward County renewed its agreement with health insurer Aetna.
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Thousands of South Floridians who are insured through Aetna will be able to continue visiting their Memorial Healthcare System doctors for in-network care as part of a recently renewed deal between the health system and the insurer.
The two-year agreement keeps Memorial in-network with CVS Health-owned Aetna’s commercial and Medicare Advantage plans. Memorial is also still in-network for Medicaid patients who have plans through Aetna’s Better Health of Florida. As a reminder, Aetna no longer offers plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, also known as Obamacare.
“For many patients and families, the relationship they build with their physician and care team is based on trust and continuity over time,” Irfan Mirza, the health system’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “This renewed agreement helps ensure Aetna members can continue receiving care from the physicians, care teams and services they know and trust across Memorial Healthcare System.”
Memorial, which primarily serves southern Broward, is one of Broward County’s public health systems. Aetna is one of the largest insurers in the state and covers millions of people, including over 30,000 county employees in Miami-Dade County.
The renewed deal went into effect immediately, which means thousands of Aetna members won’t notice any lapses in their ability to get in-network primary and specialty care across Memorial’s hospitals, nursing home and urgent care centers, including at the Memorial Cancer Institute in Pembroke Pines and Memorial Regional Hospital and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood.
Memorial told the Herald it served about 42,000 patients with Aetna plans in the 2026 fiscal year, which began in May 2025 and ended in April 2026.
For Amelia Lee, Aetna’s vice president of network for the Southeast, the renewed deal is one that will help members “maintain affordable access” to Memorial doctors and facilities and is an example of Aetna’s commitment to ensuring patients can access “the highest levels of care and support” close to home.
Hospitals and health insurers undergo negotiations all the time, a process that usually takes months. Aetna is just one of the many health insurance companies Memorial has a deal with. And, in case you’re wondering, Memorial and its sister Broward Health, the public health system that primarily serves northern Broward, are still in talks with Florida Blue, one of the largest health insurers in the state, to try and make a deal that would bring the hospital systems back in-network.
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Miami Herald
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow.
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