Maria Alexander is the Senior Director of Government Channels for Mount Sinai Health System, where she oversees Mount Sinai’s participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program and advises on other government payer programs and policy. Prior to joining Mount Sinai in 2018, Maria spent six years at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), most recently as a Division Director in the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). During her time at CMS, Maria helped develop the Pioneer ACO Model, the Comprehensive ESRD Care Model, and worked on several initiatives focused on dual eligible populations. Maria holds a BA from Tufts University.
Shawn Bassett is vice president for the north region of Collaborative Health Systems. In his role, he is responsible for strategic planning and operational and financial performance for MSSP, Direct Contracting, IPA/MSO, and Maryland PCP programs. Shawn leads the North Region teams working with provider offices to improve quality, increase efficiency, and to shift to value-based and risk-sharing partnerships. Initially when he joined CHS in 2016, he was to lead the New Jersey and New York MSSP ACO’s, working with them to achieve shared savings. His role has since expanded beyond ACO to multiple Medicare and commercial programs. Shawn has been instrumental in the growth and development of CHS, working directly with business development to launch value-based care initiatives in Connecticut, Illinois, and Colorado, including new efforts in rural health transformation in value based care and Medicare Advantage development. He is an active member of NAACOS and a member of American Physicians Group. Shawn holds a master’s degree in health care management.
Allison Brennan is the senior vice president of government affairs for the National Association of ACOs in Washington, D.C. where she helps develop and advocate for policies to benefit ACOs. Prior to NAACOS, she was a senior advocacy advisor at the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) where she helped lead MGMA’s advocacy efforts, focusing on federal regulatory and legislative issues and coordinating MGMA advocacy activities. Before joining MGMA, she worked as a program manager at the Brookings Institution where she designed and managed educational seminars focused on the policy process and federal leadership development. Ms. Brennan began her career interning in the United States Senate and then worked at the National Patient Advocate Foundation, where she lobbied state governments on behalf of patients and managed grassroots. She has a bachelor’s degree in government and economics from the College of William and Mary and holds a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University, with a focus on health policy.
Travis Broome is the senior vice-president of policy and economics at Aledade, Inc. He guides Aledade and partner physicians through the policy, strategy and economics of value based health care. Joining Aledade shortly after its start, he worked on nearly every aspect from business development for both practices and payers, to early analytics, to serving as an ACO executive director for Aledade Louisiana ACO. Prior to Aledade, he spent seven years at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in roles ranging from regulation writing to quality improvement to management. Mr. Broome earned his masters of public health and business administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Ivy Dong is a senior consulting actuary with Wakely Consulting Group. Over the course of Ivy’s career, she has consulted to and served health plans and provider groups on matters of product design, pricing strategy, forecasting, financial reporting and alternative payment models. She has extensive experience in provider risk sharing and value-based arrangements, from both the private sector and CMMI’s public programs. She advises and supports Direct Contracting entities on benchmark projection, financial modeling, and provider-level performance reporting.
Daniel Elliott is the executive director of eBrightHealth ACO and senior medical director of value-based programs and network performance at ChristianaCare. Through the ACO, he has developed and led a statewide collaboration including health systems, private physicians, and FQHCs to improve the quality and cost of care across the clinical spectrum, and remains focused on the fundamental drivers that clinicians and health care systems can do to succeed in Population Health. Prior to working in these roles, he served as medical director for Christiana Care Quality Partners. He has served as associate chair for research in the department of medicine at ChristianaCare and was the project co-director and director of evaluation for Bridging the Divides, a $10M grant from CMMI. Dr. Elliott earned a B.A. in economics and political science from Duke University and his M.D at Jefferson Medical College as a Delaware Institute for Medical Education and Research Scholar. He earned a master’s degree in clinical epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is an associate professor in the department of medicine at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. He cares for patients as a primary care physician, is the governor of the Delaware Chapter of the American College of Physicians; and previously served on the Evidence-Based Medicine Task Force for the Society for General Internal Medicine.
Brad Heywood is a consulting actuary with Wakely Consulting Group. At Wakely, he has quickly become a provider risk expert and has helped multiple ACO’s and DCE’s navigate the ever changing CMMI/CMS programs, specifically the new Direct Contracting program. Brad has become a subject matter expert in CMMI’s Direct Contracting program and has presented on the program in numerous conferences to help provider groups understand the risks and rewards associated with the program. He has also been involved with various other areas within healthcare such as ACA rate filings, Medicare Advantage bids, Medicaid financial reporting / rate review, and value-based modeling.
Melody Danko-Holsomback is the Vice President of Education, where she leads NAACOS’ education on value-based care and supports members’ educational needs. She has more than 27 years of practical experience in nursing, 21 of which have been within Geisinger Health. She has performed nursing roles in community practice, inpatient, and post-acute care settings. Additionally, she has worked in various analyst and consulting roles in information technology (IT) and population health consulting before entering her role as Chief Administrative Officer and Director of Operations and IT for Keystone Accountable Care Organization. Melody also currently works as a skilled nursing facility provider for Geisinger Clinic. She has served as a member of the NAACOS Quality Committee, the National Quality Forum Measure-Loop-Feedback Committee, Health Care Transformation Task Force committees and board, and is a Days-at-Home Technical Expert Panelist. Melody attended Ohio University for her BSN and Wilkes University for her MSN as an Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner.
Melanie Matthews is the CEO at Physicians of Southwest Washington (PSW) and president at MultiCare Connected Care. She brings more than 20 years of operations, financial, human resources and product marketing experience in health care services for specialty populations. Since she joined the company in 2016, Ms. Matthews has maintained the core principals in which PSW was founded on and expanded business lines to include MSO services including credentialing, coding and compliance and the implementation of CMMI innovation models such as the Next Generation ACO. Her extensive knowledge in post-acute care provides strategic focus in reducing overall cost of care as well as provider and beneficiary engagement. Prior to PSW, Ms. Matthews served for three years as vice president of operations for Prestige Care, Inc., where she was responsible for regulatory and financial operations and outcomes for 38 skilled nursing facilities and two Medicare home health agencies in a four-state northwest region. Among her other accomplishments, she serves as co-chair for APG – Risk Evolution Taskforce, was selected by the American Health Care Association as a “National Political Ambassador” in 2013, and was named a national “Future Leader” in 2012. Ms. Matthews holds a master of science, social gerontology, degree from Central Missouri State University and a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies from Pennsylvania State University.
Robert Mechanic is the executive director of the Institute for Accountable Care where he is responsible for leading its research agenda and health care learning and improvement activities. He is also senior fellow at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University where he also serves as executive director of the Health Industry Forum. His research focuses on health care payment systems and the adaptation of organizations to new payment models. He has helped hospitals, physician groups and integrated delivery systems evaluate financial, strategic and policy considerations under risk-based payment models. Mr. Mechanic was previously senior vice president with the Massachusetts Hospital Association and was vice president with the Lewin Group. Mr. Mechanic’s work has been published in The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and Health Affairs. He is a trustee of Atrius Health, an 800-physician multispecialty group practice and Next Generation ACO in Eastern Massachusetts, and he is a senior fellow of the Estes Park Institute. Mr. Mechanic earned an MBA in finance from The Wharton School and a BS in economics with distinction from the University of Wisconsin.
Stephen Nuckolls is the chief executive officer of Coastal Carolina Health Care, PA, and their ACO, Coastal Carolina Quality Care, Inc. His responsibilities include the direct management of the 60 provider multi-specialty physician-owned medical practice and its ACO that was selected by CMS in the initial round in April 2012 and is currently in a 2-sided risk model. Mr. Nuckolls facilitated the formation of the medical practice in 1997 and has served in his current role since that time. Prior to the formation of this organization, Mr. Nuckolls helped guide physicians and integrated hospital organizations in the formation of larger systems. Mr. Nuckolls earned his BA in economics from Davidson College and his MAC from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. He is a founding member of the National Association of ACOs and served as their board chair from 2016-2017. Prior to 2016 he served as treasurer and chair of their policy committee. In addition to these responsibilities he has served on several advisory boards and committees for the North Carolina Medical Society and is a frequent speaker on ACOs and related topics at medical conferences including presentations for the Medical Group Management Association, the American College of Physicians, and the National Association of ACOs.
Michelle (Shelly) Passaretti is the corporate director of CareVio. In this role, Ms. Passaretti optimizes case management strategy and programming to position population health and the clinically integrated network to move successfully towards total cost of care and enhanced value for the community. She leads the CareVio operations team, driving the design and assessment of case management programming, payer relations, contract management, provider engagement, quality, and regulatory affairs. She also works closely with the analytics and informatics teams to optimize case management operations. Ms. Passaretti brings 25 years of experience in healthcare and case management. Before joining ChristianaCare, she worked at Geisinger Health System, where she served as the senior director of innovations and was responsible for the design and execution of new care delivery models that drove quality and patient outcomes while controlling cost. Ms. Passaretti earned a master’s degree in nursing administration and a bachelor’s degree in nursing education from American Sentinel University.
Jennifer Perloff is the director of research at the Institute for Accountable Care and a senior scientist at Brandeis University with over 15 years of evaluation and health services research experience. In addition to supporting ACO analytics for NAACOS, Dr. Perloff is developing a number of new research projects focused on the policy and implementation of population health models including beneficiary attribution, nurse practitioner/ACO staffing and low value care. She has done a larger amount of work in the area of bundled/episode payments, including the design of analytic reports for health systems participating in CMMI’s bundled payment for care improvement (BPCI) demonstration. Dr. Perloff was also on the team that built the Episode Grouper for Medicare (EGM), a comprehensive system with over 800 chronic, acute and treatment episodes designed specifically to assess resource use. She is currently adapting this tool for use with military health data. In addition to bundled/episode payment work, Dr. Perloff has developed a methodology for assessing the value of Medicare Advantage plans, drawing on the principals of hospital value-based payment. In the area of primary care, she has done extensive research on the cost and quality of nurse practitioner lead primary care. Dr. Perloff currently sites on the National Quality Forum’s Scientific Methods Panel and the Heller School Information Security Committee.
David Pittman is the health policy and communications advisor at the National Association of ACOs. He joined the National Association of ACOs in August 2018 as health policy and communications advisor, bringing a dozen years of experience in health journalism to the organization. Prior to NAACOS, David covered health care at POLITICO, including the worlds of ACOs and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. He helped launch the website’s eHealth coverage in 2014. He was a fellow of the Association of Health Care Journalists in 2014, researching how states were adopting payment and delivery system reforms as budgets struggled to recover from the recession of the late 2000s. Before POLITICO, David served as the lone Washington reporter for the health news website MedPage Today, covering nearly all aspects of health policy from Medicare and Medicaid to the Affordable Care Act and Capitol Hill. David holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and chemistry from the University of Georgia, where he graduated in 2006. While in Athens, David worked as a staff writer of The Red & Black and eventually became editor-in-chief.
Adriana C. Quiroga is a population and public health leader with nine years of successful program development and implementation, focusing on program innovation, leadership, execution, and evaluation. Adriana started her career at the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission at the Organization of American States in Washington DC, working on substance abuse treatment and prevention programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since, July 2017, Adriana, has been employing public health concepts and quality improvement strategies in her role as systems population health manager at St. Joseph’s Health, a member of Trinity Health. Adriana currently serves on NAACOS Quality Committee and she is a board member of the YWCA Syracuse and Onondaga County Board of Directors. Adriana completed her master’s in public health with an emphasis in management and policy at Kent State University in August of 2016.
Tony Reed serves as the vice president of population health operations for ChristianaCare. Prior to this role, he served as the vice president of population health strategic solutions, clinical and network services at Ascension Medical Group (AMG) where he had responsibility for all value based health care programs and contracts for AMG. Mr. Reed is the chair-elect on the board of directors for NAACOS and has presented at many conferences including the leaders board for population health management, NAACOS conferences, The Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania, xG Health Solutions, Inc and for the Marcus Evans Group. He has over 25 years of experience in the health care industry and his previous roles include, chief administrative officer for the Keystone Accountable Care Organization, AVP of accountable care initiatives at Geisinger Health, director of business development for Geisinger Diversified Services and program director for VITALine Infusion Pharmacy Services. He also served for seven years as a product director for B. Braun Medical, Inc. with product development responsibilities and gaining FDA and Health Canada approvals for their lines of infusion pumps and accessories.
Chief operating officer of Wilems Resource Group, Maddie Short works with ACOs and DCEs to create effective and compliant communications, build operations, and refine engagement strategy. She leads with enthusiasm, guiding clients to solutions that reflect the organization’s culture and encourage a patient-centric environment. Maddie has been with Wilems Resource Group for four years and has more than nine years of healthcare marketing and operations experience within Medicare programs. This experience not only spans nearly a decade, it covers more than 50 ACOs and 14 DCEs nationwide. Maddie has navigated many a regulatory minefield and lived to tell about it. She believes that the healthcare system can be improved one word at a time. Maddie holds a masters in health communication from Texas A&M University.
Phyliss Wojtusik is the executive vice president of Real Time Medical Systems. With over thirty-five years of health care experience in acute care, ambulatory care, and post-acute care, Phyllis has led the development of post-acute networks, participated in the Medicare Shared Savings Program and other value-based contract programs. Prior to joining Real Time Medical Systems, Phyllis led the development of a preferred provider SNF network for PENN Medicine Lancaster General Health. She has experience in the physician practice where she worked for more than 15 years in a leadership role for a large successful geriatric practice. She also led the development and coordination of a geriatric assessment program that focused on dementia diagnosis, treatment and management. Phyllis’ clinical background includes spending 12 years in critical care as a nurse, nurse manager, and case manager. Phyllis graduated from Lancaster General School of Nursing and Franklin and Marshal College with degrees in nursing and science.