Staff & Associates

Ray Werntz, JD
Senior Consultant
Ray Werntz, is a Senior Consultant with HPN Worldwide in Elmhurst Illinois, an organization providing a wide range of educational resources and services to help participants of health benefit plans become more knowledgeable and assertive with respect to health improvement and their engagements with health care providers. Prior to joining HPN, Ray was President of the Consumer Health Education Council (CHEC), an organization formed in 1998 by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.  CHEC’s mission was to help reduce the number of uninsured Americans and improve the health of the general public through information and research that helps individuals and plan sponsors understand the value and uses of private and public health insurance. While at CHEC, Ray concentrated on research and dissemination emphasizing the “business case” for employer involvement in coverage expansion for the uninsured and investments in employee health and increased consumer engagement in their own health and health care.

Before joining CHEC, Ray was Vice President of Compensation and Benefits for Whitman Corporation in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, where he developed and managed extensive employee compensation and benefit infrastructures and innovative health and financial education resources for employees and their families.

In addition to over thirty years’ experience as a human resources executive, Ray serves on the Board of the Midwest Business Group on Health and the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. He is also currently co-chair of the Public Advisory Committee for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO). He previously served on the Board of the Washington Business Group on Health and as the first chairman of the Illinois Health Care Cost Containment Council, a statewide hospital charges’ database. He also served on Boards of several other Chicago-based private and public sector organizations established to address health care policy, delivery, quality, education and access for low income Chicago residents.

A native of Chicago, Ray lives in Wheaton, IL. He has a BA and MA in History and Philosophy from De Paul University and a JD from John Marshall Law School.

You can contact Ray by email.