Here are 10 things to know about Joe Swedish, the CEO who jumped from a major health system to a major health insurer.
Joe Swedish has served as president and CEO of Indianapolis-based WellPoint, one of the country's largest health insurers, since March 2013.
This week, WellPoint announced plans to change its corporate name to Anthem. The change is expected to better align the company's brands and better reflect its strategy. WellPoint currently does business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield (Empire Blue Cross in New York service areas), as well as other subsidiaries.
Below are 10 things to know about Mr. Swedish.
1. This is Mr. Swedish's first experience leading a health plan. Mr. Swedish, 62, previously served as president and CEO of Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health, an integrated delivery system that spanned 10 states, since 2004. In that role, Mr. Swedish oversaw growth in revenue from $6 billion in 2005 to roughly $9 billion in 2012. In 2012, Mr. Swedish negotiated and initiated Trinity Health's merger with Newtown Square, Pa.-based Catholic Health East, which created the country's second largest nonprofit health system, CHE Trinity. The merger was completed after Mr. Swedish left Trinity for WellPoint, now known as Anthem.
2. The day after Anthem named Mr. Swedish as CEO, its stock fell by 4.6 percent, according to a Wall Street Journal report. This may have been due to a gap in expectations, as the hospital leader was not well known among managed care investors who were anticipating an industry veteran after the departure of Angela Braly, who stepped down as CEO of Anthem in 2012 amid shareholder concern about company performance.
3. Mr. Swedish works to make himself an accessible chief. Chuck Lauer, former publisher of Modern Healthcare, describes Mr. Swedish as a people person and a servant leader. "I've never heard anyone say he doesn't treat people well," says Mr. Lauer. "I've always been quite taken with the fact that he doesn't try to talk around something. He'll talk about it straight out."
In his early days as Anthem CEO, Mr. Swedish sat down with some of the company's largest shareholders for a "tough evening session with analysts who quizzed him" about why he was chosen for the CEO role over other insurance executives who were rumored to be candidates, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Mr. Swedish has also toured Anthem's operations, joined staffers in their lunchrooms to answer questions, met with politicians on Capitol Hill and sat down with President Barack Obama with a handful of other health insurance CEOs to discuss how the insurance industry could collaborate with the administration for healthcare reform.
4. Many healthcare experts think Anthem was smart to hire Mr. Swedish and bring a seasoned provider perspective into the payer world. Mr. Swedish also recognizes his potential to make payers and providers less polarizing to one another.
At the 2013 American College of Healthcare Executives' Congress in Chicago, an attendee told Mr. Swedish, in good humor, that he was about to move to the dark side. Mr. Swedish brought an earnest interpretation to the language: "I always said payers were on the dark side...and I'm certain that on the other side, payers would say health providers are on the dark side," he said. "But I'm trying to figure out this conversation. If there's a dark side, there's a light side. Quite frankly, I'm not too put off by the term 'going to the dark side.' If that's the side I'm on, we need to marry dark and light. It sounds philosophical, but I think it represents where we're going as an industry."
Longtime health system leaders now find themselves at opposite sides of the table with one of their former colleagues, but at least one health system CEO says not much has changed. Lloyd Dean, president and CEO of San Francisco-based Dignity Health, has known Mr. Swedish for more than 10 years. He said the two share mutual respect, which helps keep their conversations grounded. "I don't have to hesitate to tell him how wrong I think he is," Mr. Dean told The Wall Street Journal. "He doesn't sugarcoat it back, either."
5. Mr. Swedish been clear about his plans to diversify Anthem. "We're not old Blue," Mr. Swedish told The New York Times earlier this year. "If we position ourselves simply as an insurance company, we are going to fail."
In the early months of the healthcare exchange rollout, Anthem emerged as the largest participant in the newly created state marketplaces. Anthem also increased the number of people it insures through Medicaid, as it acquired Amerigroup, a large Medicaid managed care company, in 2012. The company recently began offering telemedicine services for minor ailments to 4 million of its members, and it has also expanded its provider networks to provide patients with greater access to care.
Anthem is also taking some unique steps to reduce healthcare costs. It crafted a program in which it offers oncologists monthly payments of $350 for each patient treated in compliance with one of the insurer's recommended treatment pathways. The insurer launched the program in six states on July 1, and plans to implement it throughout its entire network by mid-2015.
6. In its most recent financials, Anthem reported an 8.6 percent decrease in second-quarter net income, from $800.1 million in the 2013 to $731.1 million in 2014. For the three months ended June 30, the insurer reported total revenues of approximately $18.47 billion, up 4.4 percent from $17.69 billion in the second quarter of 2013. Total expenses also increased by 4.4 percent to $17.21 billion.
7. Mr. Swedish has demonstrated a firm commitment to diversity, and he hasn't hesitated to show some teeth to promote this value. One of the first things he did as CEO of Trinity Health was appoint a chief diversity officer, reinforcing the message that diversity was a top priority. "I went to my board and I shared my anxiety about our organization not having a diversity and inclusion spirit that I would like to see in terms of building a unified leadership team," Mr. Swedish said.
Soon after, Trinity enacted a plan in which all hospitals had to perform diversity and inclusion audits. If one organization failed to complete the audit, the entire bonus plan was shut down. Upon completion, the audits shed light on some significant red flags. "The board didn't represent the fabric of the community, and senior management didn't reflect the fabric of the community," said Mr. Swedish. "So the audits immediately ignited the desire to affect change."
8. Mr. Swedish was born in Richmond, Va., and his parents were European World War II refugees. He received his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and worked through college loading trucks from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. He later earned his master's degree in health administration from Duke University in Durham, N.C.
9. Mr. Swedish is passionate about fly fishing. He devotes international travel to the hobby, which is reportedly a release for Mr. Swedish's competitive streak. The Wall Street Journal reported that a giant tarpon once dragged Mr. Swedish for about two miles before the CEO was able to reel in the 135-pound fish.
10. Mr. Swedish serves on the board of directors for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, the National Institute for Health Care Management and America's Health Insurance Plans. He also serves on the board of trustees for the American Hospital Association Health Research and Educational Trust.