Mark A. Refowitz

Mark Refowitz was appointed to the CalOptima Board of Directors in February 2012, elected Chairman in May of that year and continues to serve in this critical capacity today. The county-organized healthcare system has grown in membership from 375,000 to more than 770,000 low-income children, adults, seniors and persons with disabilities since his appointment. The plan’s annual budget has more than doubled from $1.6 billion to over $3.6 billion in the same period. Under his leadership, the National Committee for Quality Assurance has rated CalOptima as its top Medicaid health plan in California for the past two years. Mark has been an actively engaged member of the Board’s Audit and Finance and Quality Assurance committees. He serves on the Health Care Committee and the Healthy Counties Advisory Board of the National Association of Counties (NACo), assignments that require annual appointments by the California State Association of Counties. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of County Behavioral Health and Disability Directors, a NACo affiliate. Mark has served as the President of the California Mental Health Directors Association and as a member of their governing board for more than a decade. His background also includes a variety of roles on the boards of non-profit organizations. He has further demonstrated his commitment to boardroom excellence as a National Association of Corporate Director’s Governance Fellow, having completed that organization’s comprehensive program of study for directors and corporate governance professionals. Mark further enhances these skillsets through ongoing engagement with the director community and access to leading practices. Mark was appointed Director of the County of Orange Health Care Agency (HCA) in 2012, a department with approximately 2,700 full-time employees and an annual budget in excess of $620 million. HCA’s organizational structure includes five major service areas: Correctional Health Services, Public Health Services, Behavioral Health Services, Regulatory/Medical Health Services and Administrative Services. The organization has more than 120 funding sources in addition to a wide array of regulatory and direct service mandates. His appointment marks the pinnacle of a professional history with more than 30 years of top management experience in public sector healthcare and social services, including experience in state and county government as well as private managed care. This experience includes the positions of Senior Vice President of Development with For Health, Inc. in Costa Mesa, California; Chief Clinical Officer with the Community Care Behavioral Health Organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Assistant Commissioner for Managed Care with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health in Boston, Massachusetts.