Jessica Dupont

Director of Risk Adjustment, Health New England; Age 33

Jessica Dupont is passionate about hockey. Really passionate.

That’s quite evident from the manner in which she can talk about everything from the ‘Broad Street Bullies,’ those famous Philadelphia Flyers teams that won Stanley Cups a decade before she was born, to the Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL’s latest expansion team, but not, she believes, its last, due to the sport’s ever-rising popularity.

Dupont, the highest scorer among the 150-plus nominees for the 40 Under Forty class of 2017, is also passionate about giving back to the community, which she does through involvement with organizations ranging from Dress for Success Western Mass. to Square One. So she was really enjoying herself last month at a unique fund-raiser for Dress for Success called Hockey in Heels, undertaken in conjunction with the Springfield Thunderbirds. The event was staged this year just prior to the March 11 tilt against the Hartford Wolf Pack.

“That event,” she explained, “brings my two favorite things together: Dress for Success and creating programs that will empower women to re-enter the workforce, and hockey, which is my favorite thing ever — NHL, AHL, you name it.”

Dupont is quite passionate about something else, too. That would be health insurance (a most unlikely career choice for this sociology major from Mount Holyoke College) and the broad goal of making sure those who have it understand it and get the most out of that critical benefit.

When asked what she does as the Director of Risk Adjustment, there was a noticeable sigh, because the explanation — at least to those not in the business — doesn’t come quickly or easily. She summed it up this way:

“I work with the physicians in our community to make sure the care they’re delivering to their patients is properly documented and coded, so that we have accurate data to build our clinical strategies around,” she explained. “We can only build interventions, do work, and make sure we’re getting paid appropriately if we know what’s going on with our membership base.”

Slicing through all that, she said her work involves making sure health insurance works for all the parties involved — HNE, those who provide the care, and, especially, those receiving the care. And she finds that work, and the company’s “holistic approach,” rewarding.

“We’re very member-focused,” she said. “And we try to take care of our members, because they live in our communities: they’re our neighbors, they’re our family members; they’re not just a number.”

—George O’Brien