There is a small pool of executive candidates who can oversee millions of lives and produce positive financial results for large healthcare organizations, and payers have shown they are willing to take those executives to court when they leave for new opportunities.
Insurers suing their former executives is not a new phenomenon. In 2016 for example, Aetna sued its former market president for the mid-America region for allegedly violating a noncompete contract by becoming executive vice president of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska. The parties eventually settled, and the executive was employed at BCBS until 2019.
Most recently, Elevance Health and Cigna have sued former C-suite leaders when they tried to make the jump to competing organizations, citing noncompete agreements and the potential for leaked trade secrets. No final ruling has occurred in either case to date.
Elevance Health vs. former regional Medicare president
Elevance Health is seeking to block the former Medicare president of its west region, Vinod Mohan, from taking on the role of senior vice president of Medicare at Molina Healthcare, alleging the former executive is in possession of trade secrets that would be disclosed to Molina.
In an Aug. 22 court filing, Elevance alleged Ms. Mohan "attempted to print a highly confidential PowerPoint presentation" containing Elevance's 2024 Medicare bid strategy shortly after informing her supervisor of her intent to resign and accept a position at Molina, in violation of her supervisor's instructions to "step away from the keyboard."
In a federal court in California on Sept. 7, Molina and Ms. Mohan called the allegations "wholly false."
"It was of utmost importance to Ms. Mohan and Molina that her departure from Elevance be absolutely professional and above board, and that Ms. Mohan comply with all of her legal and ethical obligations in her transition," the company said.
Ms. Mohan had been set to begin work at Molina on Aug. 30.
Cigna vs. former president of Express Scripts
In June, a federal judge in St. Louis issued a preliminary injunction barring former Cigna executive Amy Bricker from working for CVS Health while a lawsuit over her noncompete clause moves forward.
Ms. Bricker served as president of Cigna's pharmacy benefit manager, Express Scripts. She resigned in January to become CVS' executive vice president and chief product officer-consumer. She was set to begin her new position in February, but Cigna sued to block her from taking the new job.
Cigna alleged that CVS' hiring of Ms. Bricker put its trade secrets at risk. Express Scripts beat CVS' Caremark last year for a $35 billion PBM contract with Centene. Ms. Bricker led Express Scripts' efforts, which led to a "high six-figure spot bonus," according to the lawsuit.
CVS has argued that Ms. Bricker's noncompete clause is unenforceable because it is overly broad and anticompetitive. The company also argued it does not apply to her new position because it will be unlike her Cigna role.
Under the injunction, Ms. Bricker is prohibited from providing any services to CVS Pharmacy, CVS Health, any of its entities or any other business that is "engaged in a business similar to, or that competes with, the business of Cigna." She is also barred from disclosing Cigna trade secrets or confidential information.