As a UNC system search committee zeroed in on Tom Ross as its top choice to run the state's public universities,  one influential member was faced with a conflict.

J. Bradley Wilson is the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina. He was also a member of the UNC search committee by virtue of his emeritus membership on the UNC system's Board of Governors, which he chaired several years ago.

Ross is also on the Blue Cross board, named to it earlier this year. As such, he would play a role in making employment and compensation decisions that could affect Wilson.

(photo courtesy cednc.org)
So when Ross's name popped up during the search committee's deliberations, Wilson said he stepped out of the room. He declined to participate in Ross's interviews to avoid a conflict of interest.

Now, Ross must offer to resign from the Blue Cross board. The organization's bylaws require that members offer to step down if they change jobs; however, the board doesn't necessarily have to accept that resignation, so Ross may indeed remain on that board, Wilson said last week. The matter has yet to be addressed.

The insurance board is heavy with members familiar with the university system. A second member of the UNC presidential search committee, Walter Davenport, sits on the Blue Cross board as well, but did not sit out the Ross interviews, according to a UNC system spokeswoman. He is not a Blue Cross employee, as Wilson is, and thus didn't have the same conflict.

Harold Martin, the current chancellor at N.C. A&T University, is also on the Blue Cross board. Prior to taking the reins at N.C. A&T, he served as a UNC system vice president.

Other board members include Jeffrey Houpt, the former head of the UNC Health Care system, and Lloyd Hackley, a former chancellor at Fayetteville State University.

Blue Cross hasn't disclosed what it's paying Ross for board work. Other board members were paid $33,047 to $51,314 last year, Blue Cross reported in a filing with the N.C. Department of Insurance.

Ross was hired last week to head the 220,000-student system. He starts work Jan. 1 and will earn $525,000 annually.

On the day a new CEO takes the reins at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, the state's largest health insurer promoted another top executive.

J. Bradley "Brad" Wilson officially became CEO of the Chapel Hill company today, succeeding Bob Greczyn, who has retired.

Also, Blue Cross promoted Maureen O’Connor, who has served as chief administrative officer, to executive vice president, chief strategy officer and general counsel. In her expanded role, O’Connor will oversee strategic management for the company.   

She joined Blue Cross in 2000 as vice president and deputy general counsel and later assumed the role of chief administrative officer.
Before coming to Blue Cross, she was senior regional counsel with CIGNA, senior vice president and general counsel of Healthsource North Carolina and in private practice with Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett & Jernigan in Raleigh.

Have you heard the one about the guy who came in for a CT scan?

Of course you haven't, and the joke is on you. Because doctors and health officials failed to track the patient, the fellow in question got 328 brain scans in just two years.

That incident -- which took place in this state -- is emblematic of the nation's broken health care system, said Lanier Cansler, N.C. Secretary of Health and Human Services. We've got the science to map a patient's brain but we don't have a system in place to keep patients from getting unnecessary procedures.

"You can recognize that person because they glow in the dark," Cansler quipped.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has promoted one of its top executives to president, putting him in line to succeed CEO Bob Greczyn, who plans to retire next year.

The board of the state's largest health insurer over the weekend approved naming chief operating officer J. Bradley Wilson to the president spot. Greczyn will remain CEO, but has indicated he will step down in 2010.

Wilson, 56, is a lawyer who joined Blue Cross in 1995 after serving as general counsel for Gov. Jim Hunt. Wilson, who holds degrees from Appalachian State, Wake Forest and Duke universities, also is on the University of North Carolina board of governors.

Greczyn, 58, has been CEO and president for 11 years. The health insurer covers more than 3.7 million members, including as administrator for the state employees' health plan.