While some state exchange executives exited their exchanges amid foundering technology and low public esteem, the director of one successful state HIX has landed in the growing private exchange unit of a large national insurer.
Patty Fontneau, the CEO of Connect for Health Colorado, is leaving next month to take on the role of president of private exchange business at Cigna.
A former chief administrative officer with the insurance broker IMA Financial, Fontneau came to the state exchange in 2011 and led it through a rocky start to an ultimately successful first open enrollment period. Some 140,000 Coloradans enrolled in exchange plans during the first open enrollment, with about 100,000 of them receiving subsidies.
"We increased access, affordability and choice for individuals, families and small businesses purchasing health insurance in Colorado," Fontneau said in a media release. "We delivered an entirely new service for Coloradans, and opened on time and under budget."
While premiums were affordable in many places, Colorado's exchange did have to contend with a regional rating system that left three Rocky Mountain counties hosting the highest premiums in the nation, which prompted the state insurance commissioner to seek an amended rating system designed to moderate the high variability.
That issue aside, though, Fontneau has been lauded for helping bring a decent turnout of consumers and attracting a wide field of insurers, including Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Cigna, Colorado Choice Health Plans, Colorado HealthOP, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, Rocky Mountain Health Plans and UnitedHealthcare.
Fontneau and her achievements appealed to Cigna.
When she joins Cigna later this summer, Fontneau will be working in a different sort of exchange business, focused largely on retaining and expanding the company's group business through both multi-payer exchanges and Cigna's own defined contribution exchange platform for employers.
In a media release, Cigna's president of global employer and private exchanges, David Guilmette, said the emerging private HIX space "is growing rapidly." Fontneau, he said, "will work with our client teams to expand our proprietary private retail exchange and participation in other private exchanges across the country."