Ronald Joseph Berding, South Florida managed care executive who has created a powerful industry in the five health plans moribund, died June 23 at the 60 years of a rare abdominal cancer.
Joe, as everyone called him, arrived in Florida from his native Kentucky in 1987 as CEO of Louisville-based operation Humana in Florida. He left in 2001 to transform a group health plan lost $ 120 million annually in Vista Healthplan.

By the time Vista was Coventry Health Care sold in 2007 for 685 million U.S. dollars, the plan had 295,000 members, 850 employees and was generating $ 1.2 billion in annual revenues.
Berding retired and moved to Miramar for Pinecrest with his wife of five years, Geri Diaz Berding.
He had 12 years of healthy life after the initial assault of his fatal cancer, retroperitoneal liposarcoma in 1993. Surgeons removed a 25-pound tumor from the abdomen of his father, son Chris Berding said.

"All big shots gave him six months to live. There were 40 documented cases and he was the only survivor.''

Berding influenced the care industry administered and state policies toward it, said Tom Wyss, a health consultant who worked with him in Human and VISTA.

"In addition to running the health plan's most successful South Florida,''said Wyss, "Joe was instrumental in making health plan issues Tallahassee, where they have meaningful representation, such as hospitals had, and getting those issues face legislators so that it became clear they were not out to make money, but to cover people who can not afford medical care.''

Berding earned a degree in accounting from Bellarmine University in Louisville, while working at a convenience store, said Sister Sharon Sellinger of Plano, Texas. Humana was sent to the University of Louisville School of Law.

He began his career at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kentucky, then joined Humana, originally a hospital corporation, now one of the health of the nation's largest consumer-the marketing benefits.
In retirement, Berding collected old maps, to play poker online, and researched his family history.
"Genealogy was his hobby,''son Chris said. "draw the family back to Abraham Lincoln's sister,''Hayden's family, who founded Grand Old Kentucky Distillery dad, and the king of Scotland in the early 14th century, Robert Bruce.

When he felt well enough, Berding played poker at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino near Hollywood, and last year 68th of 2,700 players in a World Series of Poker event under – $ 1,500 per point, his son said.

After his death, tributes came from former colleagues, who Berding remembered as a great team player at heart, the senior executive unusual for hundreds of employees knew by name and worried about his life inside and outside the office.

In a note to a family scrapbook, Humana employee Regina Davis, spoke of the goodness Berding to help your work from home after she fell seriously ill while serving as Manager of Complaints and Appeals office in Miramar.

"He stated that "I have been loyal to Humana and now is our time to be there for you … "He asked me to stop worrying about my job and concentrate on getting better, that was not an option I could see at the time of my life,''Davis wrote.

Wyss, former chief financial director of VISTA, he said quietly Berding paid for a 82-year-old burial Humana employee "wrote propio''a control of their workers who needed money, but failed to meet with the guidelines of human resources for business loans.

In 1991, Berding launched an initiative that Humana hospitals in Broward and parts of Miami-Dade, uneaten food donations to food banks.

Arthur Hipwell was general counsel for Humana in 1987 when the company was trying buy International Medical Centers (IMC).

Once the nation's largest Medicare-certified HMOs, BMI collapsed after founder Miguel Recarey, Jr. – under indictment for wiretapping, bribery and embezzlement – fled the country, leaving $ 300 million in outstanding claims.

Under Berding, BMI "became the most successful acquisition in the history of humanity,''said Hipwell.
The secret of his success was simple, according to his son Chris: hard work, "Correction of people around you, and not be afraid to make decisions. He did, and more often no, he was right.''

Besides his wife, son and sister Sharon, Berding survived by his brother Tommy and sisters Beverly Kernan and Laura Blizard, all of Louisville, and stepchildren Maritza Diaz and Jorge Diaz of Miami.

The funeral was held.

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