General Counsel

Functional Title\: General Counsel

Department\: Legal

Job Grade\: M9A

Salary\: $121,867 - $188,708

About the Agency\:

The Group Insurance Commission (GIC) seeks to hire a General Counsel. With over 280,000 subscribers and 460,000 members, the GIC provides and administers high-quality, affordable health insurance and other benefits to the Commonwealth's Employees and Retirees, and their dependents and survivors. The GIC also provides coverage to participating municipalities, Housing, and Redevelopment Authorities' personnel as well as to retired municipal employees and teachers in certain governmental units.

The GIC is committed to achieving four key goals\:

• Provide access to high quality, affordable benefit options for employees, retirees and dependents.

• Limit the financial liability to the Commonwealth and others (of fulfilling benefit obligations) to sustainable growth rates.

• Use GIC’s leverage to innovate and otherwise favorably influence the Massachusetts healthcare market.

• Evolve the business and operational environment of the GIC to better meet business demands and security standards.

About the Position\:

Reporting to the Executive Director, the General Counsel is a key member of the agency’s senior management team who sets policies and determines priorities for the legal team. The General Counsel contributes to the formulating of GIC policy by reviewing recommendations, advising the senior staff of legal implications, and providing alternatives based on a thorough knowledge of federal and state laws and regulations. The General Counsel also ensures agency compliance with all regulations and statutes and has oversight of the entire legal team providing them with a strategic vision for the department and managing their day-to-day activities.

Duties and Responsibilities (these duties are a general summary and not all inclusive)\:

• Serves as an agency on a wide range of legal topics and provides strategic and legal insight into proposed policies and procedures.

• Serves as Commission legal counsel, advising on Roberts Rules of Order, Commission Governance and Procedure, and Commissioner compliance with open meeting and ethics laws.

• Provides legal advice for the agency’s programs including drafting, negotiating and mediating contracts.

• Serves as the chief legal advisor for municipal law, COBRA, and HIPAA, and implementation of changes to regulations or agency activities when necessary.

• Advises staff of the legal considerations for health data management and the agency’s clinical performance improvement initiatives.

• Provides legal oversight of the agency’s implementation of state and federal care reform, mental health parity and the Municipal Partnership Act.

• Serve as a Strategic Scoring member on procurement teams and as legal advisor to procurement teams.

• Coordinates with health and other benefit plans on state and federal mandates such as appeal rights for adverse benefit determinations.

• Works with Operations Unit staff to answer inquiries about eligibility, probate and beneficiary rights.

• Advises and represents the Commission at sensitive meetings with high level officials and all branches of government and private sector counterparts.

• Reviews the agency’s major communications.

• Manages and directs legal strategy with Attorney General’s office for all agency-related affirmative and defensive legal actions.

• Oversee cases through pretrial, trial, and appellate review including responding to discovery, as well as drafting and editing court filings.

• Provides guidance on updates to agency regulations, as needed, and offers commentary on proposed regulations affecting the agency’s activities and objectives.

• Onboards, trains and manages all legal staff.

• Directs the activities of staff in the legal department.

• Briefs and trains staff about legal developments that affect the agency’s work.