Health plan chief sees opportunity in new alliance [Westchester County Business Journal (NY)]

At Hudson Health Plan headquarters in Tarrytown, Georganne Chapin said she was "really excited" at the wider prospects ahead on the state's shifting health care landscape for the nonprofit insurance provider she leads as president and CEO. After a year of planning, Chapin and her counterpart at MVP Health Care in Schenectady recently announced that Hudson will join the MVP family of companies.

It is an affiliation of two "very like-minded" companies rather than a consolidation or an acquisition, Chapin said of the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed. The Tarrytown company will continue to operate as Hudson Health Plan and no layoffs are expected in the wake of the new alliance.

"What we end up with is still very much to be determined," Chapin said of the affiliation that has been approved by the state Health Department. "Mostly what we have now is the outline of a deal."

Hudson serves approximately 120,600 members enrolled in the state-sponsored Medicaid Managed Care, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus plans in Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, Ulster and Sullivan counties. The organization's federally recognized expertise in the Medicaid managed care field will be useful to MVP in serving its Medicaid clients in the Capital Region and Western New York, "in exchange for their expertise in other lines of care such as Medicare," said the Hudson CEO.

Chapin said the affiliation with MVP, which offers Medicare and other plans, gives Hudson members more options when moving out of Medicaid. In addition, "Having Medicare is a very big deal as people age out of commercial insurance."

In an earlier joint announcement with MVP Health Care President and CEO Denise V. Gonick, Chapin said her company expects the affiliation "will create many new opportunities for our customers, employees and communities. We will now become part of an organization with the critical mass necessary to thrive and grow in the rapidly evolving health care field."

Together Hudson and MVP will serve approximately 733,000 members in New York. Gonick and Chapin said their companies will be well-positioned to grow in membership and compete in the New York State Health Benefit Exchange that will open in October as an alternative assurance marketplace for individuals and small businesses.

Chapin said Hudson did not plan to offer individual and small business insurance on its own in the Health Benefit Exchange. "It was our strategy to work with another health plan and not have to start from scratch," she said.

Gonick said Hudson and MVP "both have excellent reputations for customer service, which will be a major consideration for consumers purchasing insurance through the Exchange." She added that Hudson's expertise in community-based enrollment that focuses on individuals "will be invaluable as MVP moves into direct consumer sales in the Exchange environment."

"The health care reform and changes in the health care environment are definitely driving all kinds of new arrangements, partnerships. consolidations and affiliations," Chapin said in a phone interview. "Definitely we're all looking to get bigger or diversify our health care business."

"It definitely was part of the reason that we came together. The other reason is just the economics of insurance: the bigger business you have, the better."

Both Hudson Health Plan and MVP are among six health plans chosen to participate in an initiative sponsored by the federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation in which primary care practices assume responsibility for coordinating care for patients with complex medical needs.

MVP officials said the company's commercial and Medicare Advantage programs were among the highest-rated plans in the National Committee for Quality Assurance health insurance plan rankings from 2012-2013. Hudson Health Plan has ranked highest in overall satisfaction among Medicaid members in the Hudson Valley since 2003.