CareSource names new CEO, replacing Morris

March 28--CareSource has named its next CEO.

Erhardt Preitauer will succeed founding CEO Pamela Morris, who will retire in May. Preitauer is currently with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Preitauer will join CareSource on May 1. He is the CEO of Horizon NJ Health which is the state's largest Medicaid plan with more than $6 billion in revenue and 1 million members. Morris will work directly with Preitauer for several weeks to ensure a smooth transition, the company announced.

"He has an impressive background in leading government sponsored health plans and he has a proven history with mission-driven organizations with a holistic focus on the member," said Kevin Brown, chairperson of CareSource Management Group Board. "Pam has been a true visionary in the health insurance industry, and I am confident Erhardt is the right person to lead CareSource forward."

Morris has served as the president and CEO of CareSource since its inception and in October announced her plans to retire.

She built present-day CareSource -- with a 2017 revenue of $8.8 billion and 4,000 employees -- up from its start in 1989 as the 38-employee Dayton Area Health Plan.

When she announced her retirement, Morris said, "CareSource has been much more than a job for me, it has been my life's passion. Even in those early days through today, I have never lost sight of what I set out to do when I came to Dayton and we started the Dayton Area Health Plan."

Morris pioneered Ohio's first mandatory Medicaid managed care program, which privately manages policies under the state-federal insurance program for the poor.

Under her leadership, CareSource has grown to become one of the nation's largest Medicaid Managed Care plans, serving more than 1.8 million members in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and West Virginia.

CareSource anchors downtown Dayton with about 2,000 employees, making it one of the largest employers in the city's core. It is in the midst of building a new six-story building on East First Street near its headquarters at the corner of Monument Avenue and Main Street, which are the only two major new office buildings to be built downtown in the past decade.

While the nonprofit insurer's focus is on managing Medicaid plans, this year it also dramatically expanded how many counties it sells health plans under the Affordable Care Act exchanges, despite the uncertainty facing the health insurance law, also known as Obamacare.

The company sells individual plans on the ACA marketplace in 60 Ohio counties

CareSource made national headlines when it stepped up to offer health plans in Paulding County, which until that point had been the last county in the U.S. without an insurer lined up to sell a plan on the ACA exchange in 2018.

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