Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield continues its commitment to maintaining a local presence in western and northeastern New York with the recent appointments of Sarah Cotter as Vice President and Market Executive and Sue Gannon as Vice President of Provider Contracting and Relations. Both are familiar faces in New York.

These roles will drive forward Highmark’s Living Health strategy by working with our provider partners in new and different ways, advancing our shared goals of improving outcomes, reducing costs, and eliminating barriers in support of that mission.

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As VP, Market Executive, Sarah Cotter oversees Highmark’s strategic and operational plans, with a large focus on expanding and nurturing provider partnerships for the New York market.

Before Highmark, Cotter was Vice President of Population Health & Client Engagement at HEALTHeLINK where she provided strategic guidance to advance population health and value-based care initiatives and collaborated with key stakeholders to enhance new uses of the local Health Information Exchange.

She also spent more than a decade in various leadership roles at Catholic Medical Partners and Catholic Health.

“I hope that I am able to share that I understand — at least to a certain extent — the challenges that the health care community has been under and continues to face,” Cotter said.

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Sue Gannon, VP, Contracting, leads the health plan’s contract strategy and is the primary liaison with Highmark’s trusted provider network.

Gannon is a long-tenured Highmark leader, most recently as Director of Provider Experience. She’s also held leadership positions in operations, individual market, and as the chief of staff to the Executive Vice President of Operations.

In her elevated role, she will build upon her provider relationships and continue to move the health plan’s Living Health strategy forward to bring better value and improved health to the communities it serves.

“I understand the important role the provider plays coordinating care for patients and how challenging that can be in today’s environment,” said Gannon.

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Cotter and Gannon will work closely together with Dr. Michael Edbauer, President of Highmark Western and Northeastern New York, each with a unique focus on our network providers and provider partnerships.

“I think we all bring a slightly different perspective but an aligned one: that is to make the payer-provider relationship as seamless as possible,” said Cotter.

What Cotter describes is at the heart of Highmark’s Living Health strategy that puts payers and providers closer together — to reduce fragmentation and administrative burden — allowing providers to spend more time face-to-face with their patients, helping them before health issues arise. It’s an initiative both Gannon and Cotter are excited about.

“Living Health is one of the reasons I am at Highmark,” Gannon said. “It focuses on patient outcomes as well as improved experiences for patients and providers. My first thought when introduced to Living Health was — preventive care. To me that is what Living Health is — ensuring the patient and the provider have what they need to avoid unnecessary illness.”

Cotter said, “I loved the way the Living Health model was described to me in the interview process, and I thought it was a great opportunity to take my experience of the pain points I felt on the provider side and bring that to the payer and help with working strategically with partners across New York to create a new, more efficient way of doing business together.”

In 2024, the health care industry continues to face urgent challenges including residual delayed utilization following the COVID-19 pandemic, rising costs due to inflation and increased wages, and workforce shortages.

Gannon said it’s important to her to listen to providers and understand the challenges they face in delivering high-quality care while partnering with them to contain cost, improve health outcomes, and decrease unnecessary utilization.

Listening to providers, especially smaller practices, continues to guide Highmark as it makes decisions that further support care — such as recently being the first Blue Plan in the country to offer a Funding Assistance Program during the recent Change Healthcare cyber event.

“I feel it is important for the payer-provider relationship to have a common understanding of the market dynamics, especially with regard to reimbursement. As value-based care models continue to evolve, they are allowing providers the freedom to care for their patients in the most efficient way, leading to better outcomes and a better patient and provider experience,” said Gannon.

Cotter echoed the importance of the relationship building with our providers — something she plans to focus on.

“I think Highmark is making an investment in both people and technology, and trying to find ways to make the process work better for our provider partners,” Cotter said. “I’m eager to learn more about the Highmark services and partnerships across different markets that I can help leverage to make New York even more successful.”

“I would like to say a huge THANK YOU for your patience as we all learned together how to navigate new systems and policies. The big hurdles are behind us now and we can focus on the future. With the Highmark affiliation comes access to programs to help best manage a patient’s care,” Gannon said.