For the first time in almost four years, WellPoint will have a chief strategy officer, just as value-based reimbursement contracts are taking off.
WellPoint has named Martin Silverstein, MD, a 25-year veteran of the Boston Consulting Group, to the job of chief strategy officer, effective April 28, tasking him with enterprise marketing, corporate development and finding new areas for growth.
"Marty brings broad healthcare sector expertise to the role, and is respected throughout the industry for advancing innovative business solutions at the intersection of managed care, care delivery, pharmacy, and health care reform," said Joseph Swedish, WellPoint's CEO, in a media release.
Silverstein's "leadership and experience will be critical as we refine and advance our strategies to further our position as a valued health partner and leading health benefits company," Swedish said.
A Yale-educated internist and Harvard MBA, Silverstein rose in the ranks at BCG to lead its global healthcare practice, working with managed care firms, integrated delivery systems, pharmaceutical manufacturers and retail pharmacies.
In a 2011 perspective on BCG's website, Silverstein predicted that payers adapting to health reform were mostly leaving behind the "well-worn managed-care tool kits that simply squeezed reimbursement and punished physicians for noncompliance." Instead, he saw more innovative health plans working with providers to tackle the quality problem and developing systems for reimbursement based on outcomes.
"People understand that managing medical costs is the key to bending the cost curve and that payer-provider collaboration, in turn, is critical to managing medical costs effectively," Silverstein said. "Meaningful progress will depend on how fast payers can build the capabilities that will enable doctors to improve patient outcomes."
Silverstein is joining an insurer that is transitioning primary care networks to alternative reimbursement systems, with about 50 percent of WellPoint's contracted physicians nationwide paid under something other than a fee-for-service contract.
Silverstein will be WellPoint's first chief strategy officer since 2010, when former CSO Bradley Fluegel (who now has the same position at Walgreens) departed in tandem with the company's chief actuary amid controversies over miscalculated premium increases and public sparring with the Obama administration not long after the Affordable Care Act became law.
Before Fluegel, and before the ACA, the chief strategy position was held by Marjorie Dorr, who retired from WellPoint in 2007 and now sits on the board of PharMerica, and Mark Boxer, who's now Cigna's CIO.