Name: Dennis Matheis
Previous title: President of health plans and executive vice president, Sentara
New title: President and chief executive officer, Sentara
Matheis will assume his new role Sept. 1 with the nonprofit system that operates 12 acute care hospitals across Virginia and North Carolina and a health plan with over 800,000 members.
He is succeeding Howard Kern, who worked for the system for more than 40 years before announcing his retirement.
As president of Sentara’s health plans, Matheis led a technology modernization of the system's plans, helped implement new care models with providers and led the joint ownership transaction of Virginia Premier with VCU Health System.
The system’s health plan division more than doubled its members under Matheis leadership, according to a release.
Prior to his 2018 start at Sentara, Matheis was senior vice president at Anthem and president of the payer's central region and exchanges. He also held senior leadership roles at Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Missouri, Cigna, Humana and Advocate Health Care in Chicago.
“Dennis is consistently innovating and thinking about ways to increase access to quality care, achieve greater success and outcomes, and develop new services to improve each patient’s and member’s individual experience with health and wellness services,” Allan Parrott, chair of Sentara’s board of directors, said in the release.
Sentara scrapped plans earlier this month to merge with Cone Health, a nonprofit system with five hospitals in North Carolina and two health plans with 15,000 members. The deal would have created a 17-hospital, $11.5 billion system.