Blue Cross Board Trustee Kathleen Blatz will serve as interim CEO starting on April 1.
After nearly three years at the helm, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota President and CEO Craig Samitt, MD, will retire on May 3, the company announced Wednesday.
Kathleen Blatz, a former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice and a Blue Cross Board of Trustees member for more than a decade, will serve as interim CEO starting on April 1, while the board looks for Samitt's replacement.
Blatz also served as interim president and CEO for Blue Cross before Samitt's appointment in July 2018.
In an interview with HealthLeaders in January, Samitt said he had "mixed emotions about the future" as the healthcare sector emerges from the pandemic.
"My greatest worry is that we go back to the way things were," he said. "We've been calling it the 'Day After Tomorrow' strategy; that what happens in June can't be what it looked like a year ago. It just can't. We have to leapfrog over tomorrow and go to the day after tomorrow and be somewhat insistent and brave. It's not a 'new normal,' I hate that expression. A 'better future' is the way that I would describe it."
"I've long predicted that something would disrupt healthcare; COVID didn't break our system because so much was already broken in our industry," he said. "We either didn't recognize it or we weren't rewarded to fix it."
As one of the first healthcare executives to identify racism as a public health crisis, Samitt made racial and health equity the cornerstone of Blue Cross’ initiative to make healthcare more equitable.
"The impact of racism on health is expansive, and frankly, much greater than we have historically recognized or, frankly, been willing to admit," Samitt said in a March 25 interview with HealthLeaders.
"The mission of Blue Cross is to focus on high quality, sustainable, affordable, and equitable healthcare, [but] we are missing a huge driver of poor health and inequities if we ignore the impact that racism has on the health," he said.
Blue Cross Board Chairman Michael Robinson said the insurer would continue to push for racial and health equity, while working with providers to keep healthcare affordable, sustainable, and accessible.
"Our talented executive leadership team at Blue Cross will stay true to our nonprofit mission and will remain focused on the important work of accelerating the change that will make healthcare more accessible, more affordable, and more effective for everyone," Robinson said in a media release.
Before joining Blue Cross of Minnesota in mid-2018, Sammit worked at Anthem, Inc., where he was president of Anthem's Diversified Business Group, and chief clinical officer.
Blatz was Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1998 to 2006. She joined the Blue Cross Board of Trustees in 2009.
In 2017, Blatz spent five months as interim chair of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Authority, which oversees the operations of U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
“The impact of racism on health is expansive, and frankly, much greater than we have historically recognized or, frankly, been willing to admit.”
Craig Samitt, MD, President / CEO, Blue Cross Blue Shield Minnesota
John Commins is the news editor for HealthLeaders.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Samitt made racial and health equity the cornerstone of Blue Cross’ initiative to make healthcare more equitable.
Before joining Blue Cross in mid-2018, Sammit worked at Anthem, Inc., where he was president of Anthem's Diversified Business Group, and chief clinical officer.
Blatz was chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1998 to 2006. She joined the Blue Cross Board of Trustees in 2009.