Bud Volberding

President

Cigna Healthcare of California

Keeping the books for a major automaker and running a health maintenance organization may seem disparate occupations, but Cigna Healthcare’s Bud Volberding said experience in one world complements the other.

Volberding, who has an MBA in finance and a business management degree from Wayne State University in Detroit, got his start as a financial manager for Ford Motor Co.

“Ford was and is a very good financial training ground,” notes Volberding. “That experience applies to any business, including health care.”

Volberding, who joined Cigna in February 1997, sees financial acumen as a major ingredient in the success of any HMO. “The major challenge we face is being competitively superior and offering a product and service that our customers and members desire to purchase,” he said. “My role as president is to accomplish that.”

Using the financial expertise he acquired at Ford Motor Co., Volberding went on to a career in health care. In his current capacity as senior vice president of Cigna of California, Volberding oversees the tri-state region of California, Washington and Oregon, generating over $1.7 billion in revenue and serving 1.1 million members.

In an effort to identify problem areas, Volberding says Cigna retained the Gallup organization to conduct monthly surveys on member satisfaction. It discovered that one of the things that annoyed members was the difficulty in attaining referrals to a specialist.

To remedy that problem, Volberding says Cigna instituted “Access Advantage,” an automatic referral service. “A member goes to a primary care physician and gets an instant referral when leaving. There’s no waiting,” he said.

Of course, like most HMOs, Cigna has to battle complaints from patients and advocacy groups.

Just this month, Cigna lost a lawsuit brought by a Long Beach woman who challenged the HMO’s binding arbitration system. A state appeals court ruled that the woman has the right to bypass arbitration and file suit over her claim that Cigna doctors were negligent in failing to deliver her baby by Caesarean section, resulting in brain damage.

Volberding, however, insists that Cigna tries to put patients first, citing steps he took to give women direct access to obstetricians and gynecologists without the need for a referral. Those measures resulted in higher approval ratings by Cigna members.

“While most health plans measure member satisfaction annually or quarterly, we do it monthly,” he said. “It’s part of our competitive advantage, I think.”

Off the job, Volberding enjoys water sports, including kayaking and power boating. Like his role as an HMO administrator, “both (require) high performance,” he said.