President and Chief Executive Officer
Gateway Health Plan
Patricia
“Patti” Darnley is the president and chief executive officer of Gateway Health
Plan, a $1.6-billion managed care
organization headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that provides healthcare
plans to Medicare- and Medicaid-eligible individuals. As a well-versed insurance professional with
over 30 years of experience, Patti took the helm at Gateway during a time
when the company was poised for growth and expansion. As a leading provider of
Medicare and Medicaid health plans in Pennsylvania for the past 20 years,
Gateway is now a multistate provider with a unique focus on the overall health
and wellness of not only plan members, but the community as a whole.
Prior
to joining Gateway in 2014, Patti spent the past nine years with Centene
Corporation; most recently in St. Louis, Missouri, as senior vice president of
New Market Operations. In this capacity, she was responsible for developing all
the operational components for new health plans. Her recent focus was development of
Centene’s new health plan in California, California Health and Wellness, which
went into full operation in November 2013. Prior to that assignment, she was senior vice president of Network
Development and Operations. In that role
she was responsible for creating a new business unit that focused on network
development for new and existing markets. Under Patti’s direction, Centene developed provider networks in 11 new
states that enabled them to expand their footprint and grow membership by 66 percent
and revenue by 92 percent, adding 2.5 million new members and over $8.2 billion in
revenue. In addition, she reduced expenses and saved $11.9 million in 2011 and $13.5
million in 2012 by negotiating new vendor contracts across 19 health
plans.
Other
positions that Patti held after joining Centene in 2004 included senior vice
president of Operations, vice president of Health Plan Operations, and chief
executive officer of Centene’s University Health Plan. She consistently identified best practices to
serve members and providers, governed expansion in new and existing markets, and
represented the organization in its relationships with customers, suppliers,
providers, competitors, and government agencies throughout her tenure at
Centene.
Before
joining Centene, Patti was the chief financial officer and chief operating
officer of UPMC Health Plan in Pittsburgh from 1998–2004, when it was a tri-state
start-up organization that grew into UPMC Health Plan. She was directly responsible for all
financial management of the Plan’s annual budget, and she achieved profitability for
all product lines and grew membership from zero to over 400,000 members within a
five-year window. Patti also held
several key management and leadership roles at Highmark from 1990–97. Among her achievements at Highmark were
managing a book of business for large local and national employers with over
500 employees, delivering Highmark’s first national managed care programs
involving multiple Blue Cross and Blue Shield programs, and reorganizing plan
and network management into one operating department that coordinated all
national business involving other Blue Cross Blue Shield plans.
Patti
holds an MBA with a concentration in finance from Duquesne University. She was
an accounting major at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and earned a Bachelor
of Science degree in 1981. While in St.
Louis, Patti was a board and finance committee member of both the Repertory
Theater of St. Louis and SSM St. Joseph Foundation. She recently relocated back to Pittsburgh
upon becoming the president and CEO of Gateway Health.
Inducted
Spring 2014