On Nov. 30, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield announced that Lou Gianquinto was named president of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Connecticut. Gianquinto, a Connecticut native, had been serving as president of Missouri Care at the time of the announcement after previously holding industry positions in his home state at UnitedHealthcare and Oxford Health Plans.
In this installment of Suite Talk, Business Journal Senior Enterprise Editor Phil Hall speaks with Gianquinto on his return to Connecticut and his new role at Anthem.
You”™ve been on the job for three months. What have your first three months been like here in Connecticut?
“I”™m actually heading out tomorrow to drive to Connecticut ”” it”™s taken a little while for the relocation to happen. I”™ll be driving out tomorrow ”” I have a place in New Haven and I”™m looking forward to finally getting on the ground with the team.
“We have some good partnerships already in place in the state of Connecticut and I”™m looking forward to advancing some of those, particularly in the area of value-based partnerships. We”™ve got some good initial agreements with providers to start working together on outcomes improvement and how we can align incentives together and drive better member experience.
“I also firmly believe we have a better value proposition than our competitors. We have a realm of solutions that we call Anthem Whole Health Solutions that goes way beyond medical ”” it gets into pharmacy, dental, vision, life, disability, employee organization help, HR health. We can be the one-stop shop for our employer groups.”
The state has generated controversy by deviating from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines in terms of the vaccine distribution. Are you coming to a state that”™s in a good state of health? Or are there areas here where improvement could be helpful for the residents?
“With the rollout of the vaccine, those decisions are up to the state and the public health officials and the governor. Our role in the state is to educate the members around what”™s happening on the ground when it comes to either the pandemic or the vaccine rollout.
“There”™s a whole host of things we”™re doing to provide support around the pandemic: We”™ve got member education going on through social media, email campaigns and various methods that we”™re using to inform members about the vaccine rollout as well as other public health information around how to stay healthy.
“Even before the pandemic, part of our portfolio was to communicate with members constantly about things they can do to continue to stay healthy. One of the first decisions I made was to donate $100,000 toward Foodshare, Connecticut Food Bank and some behavioral health organizations.”
Prior to the pandemic, one of the major problems that I”™ve heard from people regarding their health insurance was the cost of it. What is going to be your strategy to bring costs down?
“The rising cost of health care is a dynamic, complex and comprehensive problem and we play a role in that. There are a number of things that we”™re trying to do around the cost and we have seen some of those results this year ”” we”™ve introduced some products that are about 15% lower on the small-group side and premiums.
“For us, it”™s a whole continuum of levers that we have to continuously push and pull on to make sure that we get to the right cost equation. We”™ve got the ability at this point to start working much more together with a provider and end the days of the strictly fee-for-service payment. And once we do that, if we can come up with the right arrangements with the right partners in the state, we can start driving outcomes improvement.”
Telehealth has been one of the more interesting developments of the past year. Is Anthem going to encourage telehealth in a post-pandemic period or are you going to encourage people to go back to the doctor”™s office?
“The pandemic broke down a lot of the barriers around telehealth. What we believe in the future is that telehealth and virtual care is going to be the answer to non
emergency care. We have to wrap our arms around that, but we”™ve got to make sure that it doesn”™t lead to overutilization and we are doing things to make sure that that”™s the case. But we certainly need to open that up as a point of access for our members.”
