State Medicaid Director Adam Proffitt is leaving the state health department after a little more than two years at the agency.
Proffitt said his last day at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment will be June 5.
He is leaving to become operations finance manager for Amazon in the Kansas City area.
Proffitt had been at KDHE since December 2017 when he went to work as director of finance and informatics for KDHE’s Division of Health Care Finance.
He became state Medicaid director in 2019 and had been one of the key players in the state’s debate over Medicaid expansion.
“It’s been an honor to serve in this position and work with Gov. Kelly and the Legislature,” he said.
“It was an incredibly difficult decision (to leave) and one that I didn’t anticipate making right now,” he said.
Republican state Rep. Brenda Landwehr, chair of the House health committee, said she was “shocked” to learn that Proffitt was leaving.
“Adam’s our go-to person on Medicaid,” Landwehr said. “Medicaid is complicated and, I think, Adam really busted his buns to get up to speed on things.
“I don’t think that he played politics. I think he tried to be straight and forthcoming,” she said. “He had a good handle on the numbers.”
Proffitt piloted efforts to bring Aetna into compliance with its contractual obligations as one of the managed care companies providing Medicaid services.
Last year, state health regulators warned Aetna Better Health of Kansas that it wasn’t meeting its contractual commitments and was at risk of losing a lucrative contract to manage the KanCare program,.
In March, Proffitt told lawmakers that Aetna could be out from under a corrective action plan as early as this summer as it works to comply with its obligations under the state’s privatized Medicaid program.
Proffitt has a long history of working in finance in the private sector, most recently as manager of financial planning and distribution for Payless ShoeSource.
He had been at Payless more than 10 years. He also worked as a financial analyst for Capital Federal Savings Bank.
He has a bachelor’s degree in economics and business management from Washburn University.
