Peter Marino

When Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island was formed in 1993, its founders intended the organization to be a health insurer for the state’s at-risk population. Since taking over the top job at Neighborhood Health in 2014, Peter Marino has grabbed that baton and run with it.

Neighborhood Health has grown to be the second-largest health insurer in Rhode Island, behind only Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, and it provides coverage for around 200,000 people.

Still, that original mission remains intact.

When the Providence-based Business Innovation Factory launched a maternal health initiative called LunaYou recently, it found an eager partner for the endeavor: Neighborhood Health and Marino, the organization’s CEO and president.

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The project is aimed at empowering women through their pregnancies and after childbirth to improve their health, a goal that Marino said aligns with Neighborhood Health’s mission. While the program is free to all pregnant Neighborhood Health members, it is designed to help Black and Indigenous women, and women of color – all of whom have far poorer maternal health outcomes.

Under Marino’s leadership, the insurer also declined last spring to roll back coverage of costs to its members associated with COVID-19. Other health insurers said they would no longer fully cover the costs related to the virus but then backtracked.

Neighborhood Health didn’t waver. “I want to assure our members that Neighborhood is, and will continue to be, here for them during these challenging, uncertain times,” Marino said.