State officials have found the person they say will guide the IT components of Vermont Health Connect exchange to completion.
Or rather, he found them.
Robert Skowronski, 63, of Warren has worked in health insurance for more than three decades, most recently as a project manager for UnitedHealthcare’s Northeast regional leadership team.
There he led the company’s participation in New York exchange marketplace, and had a first-hand look at the relationship between an Obamacare exchange and an insurance carrier.
He has worked for the insurance giant on several other exchanges in several other states during the past two-and-a-half years, Skowronski said.
Skowronski had a general awareness of what was going on with Vermont Health Connect, but when he started paying closer attention, he was struck that the state had taken “false steps” similar to mistakes made in New York and elsewhere, he said.
Skowronski decided to send a letter to Lawrence Miller, chief of health care reform, offering his services.
Miller said he forwarded the letter to Harry Chen, interim-Secretary of the Agency of Human Services, and after an internal review process the state decided to hire him.
“He has a wonderful depth of experience with exchanges in other states,” Chen said of Skowronski, “He wanted to come back to Vermont and we’re glad to have him.”
Skowronski started work Tuesday in his new role as the Department of Vermont Health Access’ interim-deputy commissioner for Vermont Health Connect.
Skowronski will make a deputy commissioner’s salary of $105,000 and has committed to spending one year working for the state, Miller said.
His initial overture to Vermont predated its hiring of Optum, a UnitedHealthcare subsidiary, and he said that the contractor had nothing to do with his hiring.
Optum, which is in the process of taking over as the primary IT contractor for the exchange, has a $15.1 million contract, which is expected to grow with its role.
A recent consulting report from Optum suggested that the state hire a project manager with experience in handling $50 million to $100 million IT projects, but Skowronski said that wasn’t written with him in mind.
“I wish Optum cared about me enough to do that; it’s really a coincidence,” he said.
But it’s a coincidence that could play out in Vermont’s favor, he said, because Optum offers the same services internally to UnitedHealthcare and its other subsidiaries as it does externally to clients.
As a result, Skowronski has worked on exchanges with Optum before.
There is a lot that needs to be done to complete IT components of Vermont Health Connect.
The site is expected to, but cannot, allow users to change personal information or health coverage online, automate coverage renewals and allow small businesses and their employees to use the site.
There are also 2,500 “nonfunctional deliverables” that former contractor CGI did not complete. Nonfunctional deliverables are items such as how long it takes a Web page to refresh after a user hits “enter.”
Skowronski replaces Lindsey Tucker, who will continue to work for the Department of Vermont Health Access on policy issues, officials said, but her title and the exact nature of her new role were unclear Wednesday.
The state had already brought in David Martini from the Department of Finance and Management to lead Vermont Health Connect’s day-to-day operations.
The IT management and day-to-day operations were both formerly Tucker’s responsibility.
Skowronski’s hiring follows a pattern at the federal level of hiring private sector experts to help government get large-scale IT projects right.
The feds hired former Microsoft executive Jeffrey Zients to consult for healthcare.gov, and Google’s Mikey Dickerson to help salvage the federal exchange when it was performing at its worst last winter.
Dickerson now has an expanded role examining and improving IT systems throughout the federal government.
Skowronski, who moved to Vermont 20 years ago to work as director of data management for Blue Cross Blue Shield — the first time Vermont considered a single-payer program — said the job brings him “full circle.”
“It’s like completing an unfinished chapter,” to be part of health care reform in Vermont, he said.
