Abri Health Plan Inc., a West Allis-based health maintenance organization (HMO) that currently handles health insurance for Wisconsin Medicaid and Badger Care members, as well as federal Medicare patients, is making preparations now to offer commercial health insurance.
On June 12, Abri’s board of directors named Tom Sobocinski as chairman of the board. Sobocinski, helped found and worked as executive vice president and chief marketing officer of CareNetwork Inc., which was acquired by Humana in the early 1990s, and brings extensive experience in the commercial health insurance to Abri.
Abri hopes to launch its new commercial product on Jan. 1, 2008, Sobocinski said. The company is now designing its plans and still needs approvals from the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI).
“We’ll be doing a lot of community involvement – we will do more door-to-door, more PR. It will be grassroots, based on the physician to patient relationship. That’s what this market is wanting,” Sobocinski said.
“I think Abri offers this market an alternative, and I think there is a yearning for that.”
When its commercial line is launched, Abri will target businesses with 100 or fewer employees, Sobocinski said. Initially, it will look for clients in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, Kenosha, Washington and Ozaukee counties.
Abri has been operating for about three years now, said Randy Westley, vice president of patient relations, and has about 10,000 Medicaid and 1,000 Medicare patients. Its Medicare patients are managed under the name Today’s Health.
The company had about $26 million in revenues for 2006 and will have about $32 million in 2007. Although it plans significant growth from the commercial business it hopes to add next year, its estimations aren’t built yet, Sobocinski said.
Abri’s model is based on local service for physicians and maximizing the patient-physician relationship, Westley said.
“Abri started when all of the (health provider) conglomerates had taken all of the service for physicians out of the marketplace,” he said. “The bigger players kept consolidating and we felt there was a market for a local player.”
Many of the physicians connected to Abri have asked it to go into commercial health insurance since it started, said Ron Scasny, Abri’s president. That request has grown louder and more frequent since Sobocinski joined the company.
“Hospitals and major (health) providers are asking ‘When are you going into commercial?'” he said. “It’s like they’re asking, ‘Please go into commercial.’ And they all know Tom.”
Abri Health Plan is owned by Avatar Partners. The owners of Avatar Partners are Scasny, Sobocinski, Randy Westley, and director of finance Julie Tindall. The Independent Physicians Network Inc. (IPN) and Serve You Custom Prescription Management Inc. are significant shareholders, as well.
Sobocinski was an obvious choice for chairman, given Abri’s desire to enter the commercial marketplace, said Michael Repka, IPN’s president and CEO.
“Tom’s experience in the market is extensive,” he said. “His experience with PBMs and hospitals in the community made him an obvious choice when we knew that he was available.”
The fact that IPN has an ownership stake helped make a position with Abri attractive, Sobocinski said, because it has more than 1,200 doctors in Wisconsin as members.
“It used to be sacred, the physician-patient relationship,” he said. “I think we’ve lost sight of what medicine is about. I was an executive and hospital administrator looking for that. This (the IPN) is a doctor group taking a position of ownership. That’s different.”
Abri has about 15 employees now at its West Allis headquarters. As it begins preparations to offer commercial health care coverage, the firm will add workers. And by the time it offers those services, Abri will have likely doubled in size, Sobocinski said.
“It could be as soon as 60 days or the first quarter of 2008,” he said. “We’re going to need employees to come up with the growth we’ve anticipated.”
Abri Health Plan
Address: 2400 S. 102nd St., West Allis
Employees: 15
Revenues: About $32 million
Web Site: www.abrihealthplan.com
