Happy New Year, and welcome to Season Three of Health Is the Key. With the holidays behind us, we turn our focus to the year ahead of us – a perfect time to re-commit to our health. And what better way to introduce our new Healthy Now, Healthy Later campaign than to have the Benefit Funds’ Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Lela Mayers as our first guest in 2026! Dr. Mayers explains how preventive care can lower your risk of illness, improve your quality of life and help ensure long-term wellness. She also explores with us all the resources available to you to support you wherever you are on your health journey.
The Takeaway
Guest Bio
Dr. Lela Mayers is the Deputy Chief Medical Officer (DCMO) of the 1199SEIU Benefit Funds, which provide comprehensive self-insured, self-administered healthcare benefits to more than 450,000 healthcare workers, retirees and their families. As DCMO, Dr. Mayers assists the Chief Medical Officer with the Benefit Funds’ clinical and care management strategies, as well as health and wellness initiatives.
Prior to joining the Benefit Funds, Dr. Mayers served as Senior Medical Director at CVS Health/Aetna. There she collaborated with the account management teams, pharmacy teams, consulting firms and plan sponsors to drive improved health outcomes for commercial and labor health plan members. Prior to that, she served as Chief of Medicine at Premier Healthcare, where she managed five ambulatory health centers across New York City. Her previous experience with union membership was earned at the Benefit Fund of the New York Hotel Trades, where she was medical director of the Harlem Health Center. Dr. Mayers worked for many years as a primary care physician at the Farrell Health Center of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where she served as faculty and medical director of the resident training program. Dr. Mayers continues to hold a position as voluntary faculty/instructor in clinical medicine at Columbia University’s Center for Family and Community Medicine. She is a licensed physician in New York State and is board certified with the American Board of Family Medicine.
Dr. Mayers received a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University, a Doctor of Medicine from Cornell University Medical College (now Weill Cornell Medical College) and a Master of Public Health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.
