| Advisory opinion request regarding whether Joseph Hicks, a Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) employee, is prohibited from seeking outside employment as an adjunct professor at the Louisiana State University Health Science Center and/or conducting consulting work for his company, MED+WorksBR Consulting. |
|
Mr. W. Joseph Hicks submitted a request for an advisory opinion regarding whether the Code would prohibit Mr. Hicks, a Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (DHH) employee, from seeking outside employment as an adjunct professor at the Louisiana State University Health Science Center and whether Mr. Hicks may conduct consulting work for his company, MED+WorksBR Consulting. Mr. Hicks currently serves as a Medicaid Management Information Systems Manager, with DHH in the Bureau of Healthcare Services Financing Section.
Mr. Hicks provided that he is the founder and sole owner of MED+WorksBR Consulting, a "think-tank" he created to find ideas on how to improve healthcare. Mr. Hicks stated that MED+WorksBR Consulting does not contract with nor receive any compensation from DHH or the LSU Health Science Center. Further, he provided that while a few of his clients may be enrolled as Medicaid providers, his agency, Bureau of Healthcare Services Financing Section, does not have a business relationship nor regulate any Medicaid provider he is considering as a client of MED+WorksBR Consulting.
|
|
|
La. R.S. 42:1111C(2)(d) prohibits a public servant and any legal entity in which the public servant exercises control or owns an interest in excess of twenty five percent, from receiving a thing of economic value for services rendered to the following persons: (1) those who have or are seeking to have a contractual, business or financial relationship with the public servants agency, (2) those who conduct operations or activities that are regulated by the public servants agency, and (3) those who have a substantial economic interest that could be affected by the performance or non-performance of the public job duties.
|
|
|
Adopt the proposed advisory opinion.
|
|
| Assigned Attorney: |
Suzanne Mooney |
|
|