Jigar Desai has over 20 years of managed care experience and has held senior leadership roles at several Medicare-focused managed care organizations. Most recently, Mr. Desai served as CEO and Executive Chair of a private equity backed payer platform GlobalHealth and Medical Card System, Inc.
Before joining the private equity group in 2020, Jigar served in the role of CFO (2008-2018) and post-acquisition (by Anthem/Elevance NYSE: ELV) as CEO (2018-2020) at America’s 1st Choice (AFC) group of companies (Freedom Health and Optimum Healthcare). Under his leadership, AFC had 130,000+ Medicare Advantage lives and it was ranked as the second largest chronic condition special needs plan in the U.S. Over 90% of the membership of AFC was aligned under a full risk contract utilizing total cost of care payment arrangements through multiple IPAs.
Jigar began his career at a Florida based MSO whose founder, a physician specializing in geriatrics, started a health plan in 2003. Jigar’s experience at the MSO & the Health Plan played a crucial role in accelerating his understanding of the managed care business and its key levers for high performance.
Jigar has an MBA in Finance and Accounting from Rollins College, Crummer Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from University of Pune, India.
