BIW health services manager named new director of MaineCare

Courtesy / Maine Department of Health and Human Services Michelle Probert has been hired to be director of MaineCare Services. Probert, manager of integrated health services at Bath Iron Works, will begin her new job on Feb. 19.

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By Staff

Acting Commissioner of Health and Human Services Jeanne Lambrew announced this week Michelle Probert has been hired to be director of MaineCare Services.

Probert is manager of integrated health services at Bath Iron Works, where she is responsible for the oversight and strategic management of employee health, wellness and welfare-related benefits.

As director of the Office of MaineCare Services, Probert will oversee MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid service, which provides affordable health care and long-term services and support for more than 255,000 people in Maine. She will help implement the Medicaid expansion, improve children’s behavioral health services, contribute to efforts to tackle the opioid crisis and ensure seniors have quality choices for services and support, according to a news release from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“We welcome Michelle’s experience in leading health system change in Maine, first-hand knowledge of Medicaid, and desire to advance the DHHS mission of promoting health, safety, well-being, and opportunity,” Lambrew said in the release.

Before joining Bath Iron Works in 2014, Probert was director of strategic initiatives for MaineCare at DHHS from 2011 to 2014. During her tenure there, she introduced the MaineCare Health Homes patient-centered medical home model to more than 170 primary care practices across the state, implemented one of the country’s first Medicaid Shared Savings ACO initiatives and spearheaded the state’s State Innovation Model grant application.

With more than a decade of experience in human services and Medicaid in Massachusetts and Maine, Probert has extensive knowledge of value-based payments, provider relations and the range of services and support that Medicaid and DHHS offer, according to the release.

Probert recently served on the Board of the Maine Health Access Foundation and as chair of the Healthcare Purchaser Alliance of Maine, working to reward and support improvement in health care quality, affordability and service. She was a 2016 Bruce Bradley Fellow for The LeapFrog Group, which focuses on steering employees and their families to safer, higher-quality hospitals and health systems.

Probert, 41, holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in Brunswick with her husband and two children. She will join DHHS on Feb. 19.

“I care deeply about ensuring that everyone in Maine, especially our most vulnerable and at-risk populations, has access to affordable, quality health care and the resources they need to live healthy lives," Probert said in the release.