Trillium Community Health Plan, the coordinated care organization based in Lane County that’s owned by Agate Resources, Inc., has a new CEO, Chris Ellertson. He replaces outgoing CEO Terry Coplin, who expects to retire later this year.
Ellertson, who’s been the president of Health Net Health Plan of Oregon since October 2007, will retain that role as well. Prior to joining Health Net, he had been chief operating officer for United Health Network, a division of Adventist Medical Center.
Both Health Net and Trillium are now owned by Centene Corporation, a Fortune 500 company based in Wisconsin. On March 24, Centene acquired all the issued and outstanding shares of Health Net for approximately $6.0 billion, including the assumption of debt. Nationwide, it had 11.5 million managed care members at the end of the first quarter, an increase of 7.1 million members, representing a 162 percent increase over the first quarter of 2015. At the same time, its total revenues reached $7.0 billon.
In Oregon, Centene had 209,000 members, according to its website.
Centene also agreed to pay Agate Resources $80 million for that transaction, with those dollars dispersed to Agate’s shareholders -- Trillium has 5,000 shares of common stock outstanding, LIPA, 3,000 shares and Agate, 2,000 shares.
Earlier, the Eugene Register Guard reported that the “Oregon Insurance Division has blacked out the identities of Agate’s 217 individual owners and the payouts they would receive under the sale,” and the newspaper asked state officials to release those names.
However, to protect their identities, several shareholders in the Eugene company sued the state and Guard Publishing Co., publisher of The Register-Guard, to prevent the release of those public records. They allege that disclosing the names and ownership interest of Agate shareholders would invade their personal privacy and threaten their professional reputations without serving any public interest.
The majority of these shareholders are Lane County physicians and also include Coplin, who earned $492,324 in 2014. That compensation package included a $96,230 bonus and stock awards of $46,000. The previous year, Coplin earned $366,530.
Trillium, which has more than 100,000 Medicaid members, reported a profit of $22 million in 2014, up from $3.9 million in 2013 and $1.15 million in 2012. Compared to other plans, its earnings before interest and taxes were $36 million.
At the end of 2015, Trillium expected to have $47 million in capital and surplus. Agate provides administrative services for Trillium and LIPA – a group of 217 physicians.
Centene’s CEO and Chairman, Michael Neidorff, meanwhile, earned $20.8 million in 2015, compared to $19.3 million the previous year. Last year Centene paid $40.6 million to its five top executive leaders, an increase of $5.4 million in 2014.
Diane can be reached at [email protected].
