Laura Clapper

Laura Clapper, MD, MPPA, CPE, is Chief Medical Officer of Allegiance Benefit Plan Management, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cigna, where she leads clinical strategy with a focus on affordability, quality, clinical innovation, and the customer and provider experience. She brings extensive experience in employer benefit design, digital health, clinical operations, and population health, with particular expertise serving self-insured employers and National Accounts. Throughout her career, Dr. Clapper has worked at the intersection of clinical care, benefit strategy, technology, and operations to develop solutions that improve health outcomes while making healthcare more affordable and easier to navigate.

A physician executive, startup leader, and Fortune 500 healthcare executive, Dr. Clapper has led the development and implementation of innovative digital, condition-specific, and value-based programs across multiple healthcare organizations. Her work has included high-risk maternity programs, including Health Net’s signature car-seat healthy pregnancy initiative; musculoskeletal programs, including CalPERS’ joint replacement reference-based benefit design; and development of an early bariatric surgery narrow-network benefit at Health Net. She has also contributed to major clinical and digital transformation initiatives including the Epic Payer Platform, Elevance Health’s Total Health Total You program, Aetna’s integrated medical and behavioral health care management model, and Health Net’s Salud con Health Net program.

Across leadership roles with Cigna, CVS Health/Aetna, Anthem/Elevance Health, and Health Net/Centene, Dr. Clapper has partnered with many of the nation’s largest employers as well as small and mid-sized organizations to design and support benefit strategies aligned with employers’ workforce, affordability, quality, and experience goals. Her work has consistently focused on moving healthcare toward a more customer-centric and integrated model—improving the efficiency of clinical operations, integrating behavioral health and pharmacy into whole-person care, advancing digital and virtual-first models, and connecting members with high-quality, high-value care.

Dr. Clapper is passionate about using technology and data to make healthcare more proactive, personalized, and accessible. From digital front doors and virtual care to advanced analytics and clinical decision support, she has championed approaches that help identify the right patient at the right time and connect that individual with the right intervention. At the same time, she has remained focused on improving the experience of physicians and other healthcare professionals by reducing unnecessary complexity and strengthening collaboration between payers, providers, employers, and patients.

A U.S. Navy veteran, Dr. Clapper began her career caring for patients and leading clinical operations in military healthcare settings. That experience gave her an early appreciation for the ability of virtual care, technology, interdisciplinary teams, and innovative delivery models to extend high-quality care across community, hospital, and remote environments. It also shaped a leadership philosophy grounded in service, accountability, adaptability, and mission.

Dr. Clapper is committed to creating a healthcare system that is more affordable, understandable, connected, and responsive to the needs of customers and providers alike.

She earned her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and her medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. She completed her pediatric residency and served as Chief Resident at the National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, now Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. She subsequently earned a master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University’s Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. Dr. Clapper has lectured at Stanford University on healthcare technology, digital health, and innovation and serves as a mentor in Stanford’s Master of Science in Clinical Informatics Management program.