Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey is making leadership changes as it faces several lawsuits involving its Omnia health plans.
Seventeen New Jersey hospitals alleged in a brief filed in November that the state’s banking and insurance department didn’t follow proper procedures for approving Horizon’s Omnia Health Alliance and Health Plan. The department “failed to comply with its own regulations concerning network adequacy, and abdicated its responsibility to ensure that the Omnia Plan was not contrary to the public interest,” according to court documents.
Among the leadership changes, Bill Castner was named senior vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs; Dominick DiRocco, Gov. Chris Christie’s former deputy chief of staff, was named director of government affairs; Ulises Diaz, former vice president of government affairs for Verizon New Jersey, will serve as director of enterprise government affairs; and Michele Jaker, former chief of staff to state Sen. Joseph Vitale, joins the government affairs team under Diaz. She and DiRocco join Government Affairs Director John Rogers, who is the former chief counsel to the state Assembly Republican Office.
The hospitals suing Horizon want the state’s insurance department to put the plan on hold pending review of the approval process. If the department refuses, the hospitals will challenge the refusal in court.
