The following article, by Julie O’Donoghue, was published in the Louisiana Illuminator at Home • Louisiana Illuminator (lailluminator.com)
LSU has hired Courtney Phillips, a former state health secretary who worked for Gov. John Bel Edwards at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, to be a top administrator overseeing healthcare for the university system. Her official titles will be vice president of health affairs and chief health officer.
The LSU System includes medical and healthcare graduate schools in New Orleans and Shreveport as well as Pennington Biomedical Center, which focuses on healthcare research, in Baton Rouge. LSU also has a medical residency program with several hundred doctors in training and manages the last remaining state public hospital in Independence.
Phillips will not manage any of LSU’s campuses or their leadership teams in her new position, according to a LSU press release released Tuesday, the day after this story was first published. Instead, she will be “maximizing opportunities” in order to improve healthcare across the state of Louisiana.
“[Phillips] will work across all campuses and in collaboration with each of you to maximize our financial well-being in all things health-related, enhance operational efficiencies, develop new revenue streams, and leverage related strengths across campuses,” wrote LSU President William “Bill” Tate in an email to LSU’s leadership Monday.
Tate said Phillips would report directly to him as the head of the university. Her new LSU position existed previously, but had not been filled in several years. Its job duties have also been adjusted, Tate said.
Phillips ran the state health department for Edwards from 2020 until April 2023, when the agency was managing the COVID-19 outbreak and launched an unprecedented vaccine program. She also previously served as a top administrator in the healthcare department for former Gov. Bobby Jindal.
Though she worked for Edwards, a Democrat, Phillips has advised and helped Republican Gov. Jeff Landry with healthcare matters since he won election last fall. She was a member of the governor’s health care transition council and helped current Louisiana Health Secretary Ralph Abraham with health care financing issues when Landry came into office.
While state health secretary, Phillips oversaw more than just the COVID-19 crisis. She adopted the extension of postpartum insurance coverage for Medicaid recipients from six weeks to one year, and the expansion of dental coverage to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the Medicaid program.
But she was also in charge of the health department during a high-profile, botched evacuation of several hundred nursing home residents to a warehouse in Independence during Hurricane Ida.
Phillips did not return a call or text made to her cell phone about her new job Monday. LSU also has not said what Phillips will be paid in her new position.
Phillips has a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Southern University as well as a Master’s Degree in Public Administration and Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology from LSU.
The LSU Board of Supervisors will also have to approve Phillips’ hiring before she can become a permanent employee.