Cigna and Express Scripts completed their $67 billion combination in December, forming a healthcare giant with $140 billion in revenue. Express Scripts Chief Technology Officer Phil Finucane is one of the key players in the integration process.
Forbes contributor Peter High, president of business and IT consulting firm Metis Strategy, interviewed Mr. Finucane on his role during and after the merger. Below are five quotes from Mr. Finucane, whose conversation with Mr. High can be read here.
1. "The merger with Cigna is an opportunity for us to further expand how healthcare gets delivered to member patients and members across the United States. Cigna is obviously one of the larger health plans in the United States, it has contracted with pharmacy benefit managers, and it will soon be working with us as its PBM to deliver healthcare. The real opportunity between our two companies is around coordinating care and managing every phase of healthcare to better deliver outcomes for the patients of Cigna writ large."
2. "There is a ton of activity going on to figure out how to bring the two companies together. This entails practical project work to ensure that we get to the path that takes us to the value that was foreseen when the deal was closed; The more important role my team and I have is to help figure out how we bring two engineering organizations that have historically operated in extremely different ways together. We want to do this in a way that allows us to operate as one seamless organization."
3. "While Cigna likewise has a strong engineering organization, when we talk about how to execute together as we work on integration, we are not always on the same page. A big part of my job is to help Cigna understand how we operate, to understand how Cigna normally works, operates, and gets work done, and to understand how it interfaces with its business partners. "
4. "There are many instances where we say something and our partners say something else, so the way that we communicate happens to differ a bit. Because of this, we have spent considerable time and focus on getting to a common set of definitions and understandings about what is needed, what is important, and what is not important. From there, we are figuring out from an execution point of view how we coordinate what is happening inside legacy Express Scripts with what is happening inside Cigna."
5. "Overall, the process has been an emergent one where these two companies have come together, and we are still trying to figure out the right way to interact with one another. We have hit a bunch of major milestones, and while we are still on track to hit all of the deliverables that we need at this point, it has not been flawless and smooth so far."