Confidential documents obtained by The Lund Report reveal that the 215 owners of Agate Resources – including 180 physicians – will be lining their pockets after selling their Medicaid coordinated care plan to Centene Corp., a Fortune 500 company last January.

Agate’s shareholders have tried to withhold this information from the public, filing a lawsuit against the Eugene Register-Guard, the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services and the Department of Justice.

They allege that disclosing their names and ownership interest would invade their personal privacy and threaten their professional reputations without serving any public interest.

But The Lund Report has gained access to all of the details about the sale, including the names of the shareholders – many of whom were paid millions of dollars – the bonus agreement and other confidential documents about the sale.

Centene paid Agate an initial $109 million for the transaction, and now runs the only Medicaid plan in the Eugene-Springfield area which has more than 100,000 members, while Trillium ended 2015 with a net income of $14.7 million.

Under the agreement, Centene will make additional payments to the shareholders based on financial performance during 2015, 2016 and 2016, which could turn into millions of dollars.

Executives and Physicians Benefited

Agate’s CEO and president, Terry Coplin, will be coming away with nearly $1.2 million from the sale to Centene, which represented 518 shares of stock. He steps down July 1, but will remain on staff part-time as an executive advisor.

David Cole, chief financial officer, who retired December 31, 2015, will have pocketed nearly $2.4 million -- 1,098 shares.

Chris Ellertson, who runs Health Net Health Plan in Oregon, has assumed the helm at Trillium Community Health Plan, but his name does not appear among the shareholders who will benefit from the Centene sale. .

Earlier, Coplin told The Lund Report that Agate entered into this purchase agreement because of the increasing administrative and regulatory demands facing the coordinated care organization and the efficiency of bringing a national organization on board.

“I’m proud of the fact we’re bringing the resources of a Fortune 500 company to Lane County. They have a very robust technology system and a whole suite of care management software. They really stressed our ability to keep up, and each year those regulatory requirements are pushing up our administrative costs. They have some support infra-structure that would take us five years to build, and we think we can get access to them now.”

Here are the names of a few of the physicians who will benefit from the Centene sale:

Richard Finkelstein, M.D., Anesthesiologist with 2,927 shares = $6,509,648

Leo Cytrynbaum, M.D., Hospitalist and Hospice specialist with 2,183 shares = $4,854,992

Christopher Miller, M.D., Neurosurgeon with 1,164 shares = $2,266,256

Robert Velarde, M.D., Pediatrician with 873 shares = $1,941,552

Centene Runs into Trouble

When it comes to Medicaid, Centene hasn’t always played fair, according to state officials in Kentucky. Centene terminated its Medicaid contract in 2013, a year before it was set to expire. Kentucky has been trying to recoup up to $174 million in state and federal expenses for breaking that contract. If they succeed, that would eliminate half of Centene’s profit in 2015, according to an article in Modern Healthcare.

The company also ran into trouble in Texas after denying emergency surgery for a seven-month- old infant with a brain tumor.

Fox News got wind of what was going on, sharing the news with their viewers nationwide and, almost immediately, Superior Health Plan changed its mind, and agreed to pay for the surgery, having earlier told the parents that Texas Children’s Hospital was not in its network.

Earlier this year, Centene also purchased Health Net, paying $6 billion for the transaction after winning approval from state regulators in California.

Michael Neidorff, CEO and president of Centene, earned $20.8 million in compensation last year, and his company ended the first quarter with 683,000 members on the exchange in 15 states, many of which were the result of the Health Net transaction. Diane can be reached at [email protected].