The Springfield company’s second recent acquisition is Primary Health Inc., based in Boise
SPRINGFIELD — A Springfield-based health insurer has made its second acquisition in a week.
PacificSource Health Plans said Monday it has acquired Primary Health Inc. of Boise, which has 29,000 members. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but PacificSource said it funded the purchase with cash.
Last Tuesday, PacificSource announced it had acquired Redmond-based Advantage Dental Plan’s commercial business, which has 35,000 members.
The two acquisitions together will add about $65 million to PacificSource’s current annual revenues of about $500 million, CEO Ken Provencher said.
And PacificSource — an independent, not-for-profit health insurer — isn’t finished growing.
It was licensed to do business in Washington at the end of last year and has a team working on a strategy for entering that market, Provencher said.
“We’re a year or two away from having a significant impact,” he said, but PacificSource initially is looking at the counties that border Oregon. “After that, we’ll start to pick markets where it makes sense,” Provencher said.
Its latest acquisition, Primary Health, has a presence in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, near the Washington border, he said.
“That may also provide an opportunity to come into the market through eastern Washington. We’re evaluating that,” he said.
After Washington, Provencher said, he’s looking at a different form of expansion.
“(Washington) is as far as I can see from a regional standpoint. What we do believe is important is that we have a presence in the government sectors — Medicare and Medicaid. We want to position ourselves to service those segments.
“Being a not-for-profit lets us look at health care from a broad perspective, not just a profit perspective,” he said.
Both recent acquisitions had been in the works for some time, Provencher said.
PacificSource had been expanding on its existing base, “But that’s a very slow process,” Provencher said,
Primary Health had a solid base, but not the resources to grow, he said. PacificSource — which provides medical and dental benefits to more than 5,600 employers and covers more than 183,000 people — has the resources to help Primary Health grow, he said.
Both recent acquisitions also are part of a larger strategy by PacificSource to expand its business so it can spread out its fixed costs over a larger membership, Provencher said.







