C-SUITE AWARDS 2020 CAREER ACHIEVER: Dr. Matt Collins | Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island
DR. MATT COLLINS wanted to be a doctor for as long as he can remember with dreams of one day opening his own practice in a small town such as Cohasset, Mass., where he grew up.
“I was impressed by the physicians in my community,” Collins said. “We lived across the street from a surgeon who worked long hours and had his own practice in his home. The pediatrician I went to was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I just felt drawn to the profession.”
Years later, Collins would find that his medical training at Howard University in Washington, D.C., would take him on a slightly different path. He said he became more interested in serving in underserved communities, and working in the poorer parts of the nation’s capital steered him in that direction.
“I sought out residency training programs that focused on training physicians to serve culturally diverse and economically disadvantaged communities,” said Collins, now executive vice president and chief medical officer at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island. “In the hopes of improving ‘the system,’ I became interested in physician leadership and sought training to develop necessary knowledge and skills.”
Collins was asked to lead the clinical program within the Federally Qualified Health Center, where he had completed his residency training and assumed the vice president of medical service role at Family Health Center of Worcester in Worcester, Mass., for five years.
‘I need to ensure health care reaches its fullest potential for both the people who work within the system and [those] who are served by it.’
DR. MATT COLLINS, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island executive vice president and chief medical officer
The firsthand primary care experience lit a fire in Collins. He dove into learning as much as possible about quality improvement methods and advanced primary care designs, feeling that primary care could do a better job at meeting patients’ needs and delivering positive results.
Desiring a role where he could have more of a direct influence, particularly from a payment perspective, Collins accepted a medical director role with Neighborhood Health Plan of Massachusetts. He held that role for more than three years before taking a senior medical director job with Fallon Community Health Plan.
Collins was drawn by Blue Cross’ commitment to improving primary care when he joined the insurer five years ago. Currently, Collins said assuring that Blue Cross supports its members and customers, as well as the community and provider groups, in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic is the top priority.
“As people have said over and over, there is no playbook for responding to a pandemic of this scale,” Collins said. “We have done a great deal so far and are constantly seeking ways in which we can do more. Empowering providers and members with the ability to do and access telemedicine, waiving cost sharing for diagnosis or treatment, and advancing payments to providers hurt by the precipitous drop in clinical revenue are some of the important things we’ve already enacted.”
Beyond the pandemic, Collins is focusing much of his work toward identifying and reducing low-value care – care that does not contribute to improved health in most cases and therefore represents unnecessary cost and time wasted.
Blue Cross CEO and President Kim A. Keck said Collins is passionate about improving Rhode Island’s primary care system experience and that his background as a family physician and a medical director gives him a unique perspective on how a health insurer can meet the needs of the community it serves.
“He leads by building consensus with stakeholders, inspiring their trust through direct, understandable communication, and following through on his commitments,” Keck said. “Matt is a master of productive collaboration, never shying away from challenging tasks. He has shown tremendous leadership during the time of the pandemic.”
Collins remains steadfast in his dedication to doing everything in his power to see that the people of Rhode Island have the best primary care system possible, he said.
“I’m passionate about a lot of things but believe health care is my calling,” Collins said. “I feel that as my chosen profession, I need to ensure health care reaches its fullest potential for both the people who work within the system and [those] who are served by it.”
