One-on-One
Martin Hickey has a secret weapon, and it has a special spot in his Uptown office.
“See that little rabbit sitting on the sofa?,” he said. “You know what that is? It’s not because I cuddle up to it every afternoon. For Christmas, I gave everyone on the senior team a rabbit because we pull rabbits out of the hat.”
There is no question that Hickey has been in need of rabbits lately.
Hickey, a doctor who has long been immersed in the world of health care insurance, headed the New Mexico Health Connections co-op until recently, when he took over a new for-profit insurer, True Health New Mexico. That entity is a subsidiary of Evolent Health.
Health Connections, one of the few remaining co-ops set up under the Affordable Care Act, had dire financial problems under Hickey’s purview, and the board of directors resigned last year in an attempt to get the state to take control of the company.
That did not happen, and Health Connections now has a new head following Hickey’s departure to oversee True Health. He said the co-op’s future is now brighter, due to Evolent’s $10 million acquisition of Health Connections’ commercial customers.
Hickey sees the move as part of his longtime commitment to physicianled health care under a model that emphasizes prevention as a way to cut medical costs.
He sees his long career as an arc that started with his studies in medical anthropology, traveling to India, Nepal and an island in the Marianas