Amid the rollout of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and its implementation as Covered California, Governor Jerry Brown has named a new director of the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC).

Michelle “Shelley” Rouillard, with three decades in consumer health and human services advocacy, will take over as the new director on December 1. She has been the department’s chief deputy director since 2011. 

Rouillard, 57, has a bachelor of arts degree in social work from Rutgers University–New Brunswick. She was a legislative advocate for low-income seniors and people with disabilities at the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation from 1987 to 1991 before leaving to become director of network operations at the Healthcare Compare Corporation.

Five years later, in 1996, Rouillard helped found the Health Rights Hotline, an independent health-care consumer assistance program in the Sacramento area. As program director, she established its extensive call handling and data collection protocols, managed the hotline operations and oversaw the hotline’s data analysis and reporting activities. The hotline was administered by the Center for Health Care Rights and Legal Services of Northern California.

Rouillard stayed until 2004 and during the last three years was also the principal at Rouillard Consulting. She entered government service in 2005 when she was named chief of health policy at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) Office of Health Policy and Plan Administration.

She went back to the hotline in 2006 and stayed for around a year before returning to government work. Rouillard was hired as deputy director of the California Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB), Benefits and Quality Monitoring Division in 2007, where she oversaw the contractual and clinical quality performance of 33 health, dental and vision plans and a contracted third-party administrator for four years.

Governor Brown appointed her chief deputy director of the Department of Managed Health Care in August 2011 when he appointed her successor, Brent Barnhart, who retired, to the top spot. She was in charge of the day-to-day operations at DMHC.

This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $151,672. Rouillard is a Democrat.  

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Governor Brown Announces Appointments (Office of the Governor)

Shelley Rouillard's Biography (Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board)

Setting up a Hotline (Center for Medicare Education) (pdf)