About

As an administrator of health plans for self-funded employers, HealthSmart provides care management solutions, electronic information services and prescription solutions. General counsel Sarah Bittner joined HealthSmart initially as associate general counsel in November 2008, in the midst of its growth, when it had approximately 350 employees. In January 2015 she assumed the general counsel position, overseeing the legal support given to the then 1,300 employee-strong company. Bittner greatly takes pride in participating in the legal and business success of the company, and seeing the impact of her work and counsel on that success is a key highlight. ‘Being in-house has allowed me the opportunity to wear my “business hat” as much as my “legal hat”. I enjoy participating in the business strategy and working to help the company become successful’ says Bittner. Forming an integral role in the business strategy, Bittner has made sure to create a legal department that is focused on serving the internal customers and business contacts, aiming towards not becoming a department that repeatedly says “No”, ‘rather we want to work collaboratively with our internal customers to understand the business and source for ways to meet their needs, while still upholding the overall goal of protecting the organisation’ explains Bittner. The health care reform has had a significant impact on Bittner’s role and HealthSmart’s business, requiring Bittner to fully understand how the reform significantly impacted customers and the business, and after much preparation and learning she now considers herself an expert in the health care reform and as a consequently can easily and effectively advise the business contacts on compliance and regulatory issues. Her advice to other in-house lawyers is to ‘get outside of your comfort zone and learn the business. An effective general counsel understands the business, including inner workings and strategies. This allows the general counsel to become aligned and trusted with the CEO and executive leadership, because the general counsel “speaks their language”’.