The leader of the state’s only “all-payer” accountable care organization, OneCare Vermont, is leaving at the end of May, the organization announced Thursday.
Vicki Loner, who has served as CEO since mid-2019, has accepted a position at a national health care consulting firm, according to a press release.
“Our efforts to unify a fragmented health care system, measure and improve quality, and transition to value-based care have all improved Vermont’s health care system,” Loner said in a written statement. “I am excited about the opportunity to apply the innovative health care reform efforts happening in Vermont to health care systems nationwide.”
OneCare spokesperson Amy Bodette declined to provide further details on Loner’s new employer or role.
For more than a decade, state health administrators and regulators have been focused on trying to change how Vermont health care providers are paid. The goal has been to move from a system in which insurers pay providers based on the number of consultations, tests and surgeries they perform to one in which payment is based on the quality of care provided and health outcomes.
Affordable care organizations, which can contract with insurers on behalf of affiliated providers, are at the center of Vermont’s current healthcare payment reform strategy. As the only ACO operating in the state that currently contracts with all major insurers — Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers — OneCare has played an outsize role.
OneCare’s focus on expanding the reach of its value-based programs hit a speedbump late last year when the state’s largest private insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont, decided not to extend its contract with OneCare into 2023.
Loner was an early hire at OneCare Vermont, which formed in 2012 as a joint project of what was then called Fletcher Allen Health Care — which has since grown into the University of Vermont Health Network — and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, now known as Dartmouth Health.
A nurse by training, Loner began on the clinical side of the ACO, working on the specifics of how to measure and reward high-quality care. In 2016, she became OneCare’s chief operating officer, before becoming chief executive officer three years later. Loner previously had clinical and managerial roles at both Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and MVP Health Care, as well as the Department of Vermont Health Access, which operates the state Medicaid program, according to the statement.
During Loner’s tenure as CEO, OneCare became a wholly owned subsidiary of the UVM Health Network.
The OneCare board plans to determine next steps in the search for her replacement at its next board meeting, which is scheduled for May 16.
