Melinda Abrams, M.S. is vice president and director of the Commonwealth Fund's Health Care Delivery System Reform program. Since coming to the Fund in 1997, Ms. Abrams has worked on the Fund’s Task Force on academic health centers, the child development and preventive care program, and most recently, she led the Patient-Centered Coordinated Care Program. Ms. Abrams has served on many national committees and boards for private organizations and federal agencies, and is a peer-reviewer for several journals. Ms. Abrams was the recipient of a Champion Award from the Primary Care Development Corporation and a Primary Care Community/Research Leadership Award from the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative. Ms. Abrams holds a B.A in history from Cornell University and an M.S. in health policy and management from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Melissa Arana MSN, RN, CMSRN is the director of the quality improvement department at the Baylor Scott and White Quality Alliance ACO affiliated with Baylor Scott & White Health. She has been a registered nurse since 2007 and later graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with her masters in nursing administration with a teaching certificate. She also holds the certification of medical surgical registered nurses.   Ms. Arana began her career in health care at Baylor University Medical Center as a trauma/emergency staff nurse, charge nurse, supervisor and then later became a nurse educator. In 2013, she became the first orthopedic program outcomes manager at Baylor University Medical Center implementing a One Day Total Joint program and later lead the hospital in receiving the Advanced Certification of Total Hip and Total Knee Replacement accredited by Joint Commission.

Gary Albers is co-founder and COO of Imperium Health Management, started in 2011 with the idea of creating independent physician led ACO's for the not yet completely designed MSSP program. Imperium currently partners and or manages 16 MSSP ACO's with over 120,00 lives, over 1,300 physicians and over 1.2 billion dollars in annual Medicare spend. Prior to Imperium, Mr. Albers was president of Soteria Imaging Services, LLC, an outpatient medical imaging provider that grew to 36 locations across the nation with over 300 employees. He attended Indiana University and received a degree in public affairs from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Mr. Albers also attended Madison University for completion of his MBA.

Joseph Antos is the Wilson H. Taylor Resident Scholar in health care and retirement policy at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his research focuses on the economics of health policy — including the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, the uninsured, and the overall reform of the health care system and its financing. He also studies the impact of health care expenditures on federal budget policy. Before joining AEI, Mr. Antos was assistant director for health and human resources at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). He has also held senior positions in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Management and Budget, and the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He recently completed a seven-year term as health adviser to CBO, and two terms as a commissioner of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. In 2013, he was also named adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at George Washington University. Mr. Antos has a Ph.D. and an M.A. in economics from the University of Rochester and a B.A. in mathematics from Cornell University.

Nick Bartz is Aledade's vice president of ACO management and current executive director for Aledade's Missouri, Florida and Kentucky ACOs. He has worked with Aledade since 2015 providing support across multiple teams. Before Aledade, Mr. Bartz worked for the Advisory Board Company as a strategy consultant for hospital and health system CEO's and the nation's top cancer programs. He has an MBA in healthcare management from the Wharton School of Business and a B.A. from Yale University. 

Amy Bassano is the deputy director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Prior to assuming this position, Ms. Bassano was the director of the patient care models group at CMMI leading CMS’s efforts on bundled payments including the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Initiative and the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model and the development of physician specialty models such as the Oncology Care Model. In addition, she was responsible for the Home Health Value Based Purchasing Model and the Medicare Care Choices Model. Ms. Bassano also held senior management positions in the Center for Medicare at CMS overseeing Medicare payment policy. Prior to her tenure at CMS, Ms. Bassano was a program examiner at the Office of Management and Budget where she was the lead Medicare analyst on Medicare Part B and D issues. Ms. Bassano has an M.A. in policy studies from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in history from Tufts University.

Adam Boehler is the deputy administrator and director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Before coming to CMS, he was founder and CEO of Landmark Health, a company that provides home-based medical care. Landmark was founded on the premise of passionate people transforming how care is delivered to those who need it most. Prior to founding Landmark, Mr. Boehler served in several other executive level roles at aLabs, Accretive LLC and MedeFinance. He is widely regarded as an innovative leader in the private sector. 

Allison Brennan, MPP, is the vice president of policy for the National Association of ACOs in where she helps develop and advocate for policies to benefit ACOs. Prior to NAACOS, Ms. Brennan 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.

Emily Brower is vice president of population health for Atrius Health, an alliance of three community-based medical groups and a home health care and hospice agency in Massachusetts. She first joined Atrius Health in 2010, as senior director, clinical improvement ventures for Harvard Vanguard and became executive director of Atrius Health’s Accountable Care Programs in 2012. In her position at Atrius Health, she has developed opportunities to support transformational work that measurably improves healthcare within value-based payment models. She is currently working with local health plans partnering with MassHealth (Massachusetts Medicaid) and Medicare on a demonstration for the “dual eligibles,” developing new care models for patients with both Medicare and Medicaid. Previously, she spent fifteen years as the chief operating officer/director of finance and operations at Urban Medical Group where she served as principal investigator for a multi-year research project analyzing cost and quality outcomes to support payment reform, and developed innovative, capitated contracts for medically complex populations. She received her bachelor of arts from Smith College, and MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business. 

Kimberly Busenbark is an attorney and the CEO of Wilems Resource Group, LLC, a boutique consulting firm specializing in MSSP and Next Generation ACO Compliance and Audit Management.  After beginning her career in Medicare Advantage compliance, she began working with ACOs during the first wave of the Medicare Shared Savings Program, and spent the first three years of the MSSP as the compliance officer for 35 MSSP ACOs across the country.  During this time, she was responsible for the implementation and oversight of the compliance program for each of the ACOs.  Mrs. Busenbark is a graduate of Texas A&M University, where she received a bachelor’s of business administration in marketing and management, and of The University of Houston Law Center, where she received her Juris Doctorate before being admitted to the State Bar of Texas.

Mark Calderon, MD, is a board-certified family physician and the chief medical officer for Atlantic Health System’s, Management Service Organization (MSO). He supports three accountable care organizations with over 2,500 physicians and over 400,000 patients in commercial and Medicare markets. Dr. Calderon has over twenty years of combined population health management experience from both the payer and provider perspective.

Andrea Cichra, HFA, is the director of population health at The South Bend Clinic. Currently, she is responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives for value-based care. She also oversees the MSSP ACO, numerous Medicare Advantage, commercial ACO, and managed Medicaid contracts. Additionally, she works on network management, data operations and analysis, care and transitions management, HCC performance, and the Clinic’s Post-Acute Network. Mrs. Cichra has more than 10 years of experience in the health care industry. Licensed as a health facilities administrator, she has served in post-acute facilities leadership. She is also a veteran of the US Marine Corps where she studied linguistics intelligence.

Melody Danko-Holsomback, BSN, is a registered nurse with more than 24 years of practice experience, 18 of which were within Geisinger Health System. She is director of operations and IT for Keystone ACO in the population health solutions department of Geisinger Health System.  As such, she is responsible for operations within the Keystone Accountable Care Organization, LLC, a Medicare Shared Savings Program Track One + ACO serving over 75,000 Medicare beneficiaries.  Ms. Danko-Holsomback is responsible for the Keystone ACO quality improvement and reporting processes and the implementation of population health initiatives within Keystone ACO.  She is also a member of the 2018 NAACOS Quality Committee. Ms. Danko-Holsomback has served in several roles during her tenure with Geisinger including community practice nurse, inpatient nurse in labor and delivery, IT best practice analyst, and population health consultant. As a consultant, she focused on numerous projects related to transitions of care, quality redesign and reporting, and the physician group practice transition demonstration. Prior to her employment at Geisinger, Ms. Danko-Holsomback served nursing roles in post-acute care, hospice, and a residential career center clinic.  She is a graduate of Ohio University and is presently enrolled in the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program at Wilkes University, Wilkes Barre, PA.

Sanjay Doddamani, MD, FACC, FACP, is the chief medical officer of Geisinger at Home, a home-based model of care for Geisinger’s population of medically complex patients. He leads a large clinical team across the primary service area in Central and Northeastern Pennsylvania. He also serves as chief medical officer of the Keystone ACO, and is a senior director in population health. In this capacity, he works with the executive leadership to accelerate improvement of performance metrics across the system, working closely with the service line, hospital and community healthcare and operational leadership, to improve integration of population health initiatives. His clinical background as a practicing heart failure cardiologist has helped provide deep insights in to chronic conditions and the struggles faced by patients and their caregivers. Dr. Doddamani is board certified in internal medicine and cardiology, as well as in heart failure and cardiac transplant. He has served on numerous panels and committees and presented on diverse topics both nationally and abroad.

Yoni Dvorkis, MPH, CHDA is lead data scientist for Atrius Health, with over ten years of experience in data science, predictive modeling, machine learning algorithms, analytics, and information technology. He is a key leader of the advanced analytics initiative at Atrius Health promoting broader utilization of clinical and financial predictive modeling, novel data visualizations, and programmatic evaluations for clinical interventions. Mr. Dvorkis is certified health data analyst by the American Health Information Management Association. He received his master of public health degree from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and his bachelor of arts in mathematics from Tufts University.

Cathy Eddy is the founder of the Health Plan Alliance and retired as its president in April. She has been a speaker for numerous boards, addressing the challenges of health care reform, provider ownership, managed care trends, governance, and accountable care.  She served on health plan boards for Presbyterian in New Mexico and Health First in Florida.  She currently is an advisor to numerous health systems, health plans, associations and companies. She has been on advisory boards for DST Healthcare and Women Business Leaders. She is a strategic advisor for Talix, Panviva and Pinscriptive. In 2018 she joined the board of GrayMatterAI.

Rich Feifer, MD, is chief medical officer of the Genesis HealthCare ACO and of Genesis HealthCare, one of the nation's largest skilled nursing and long-term care providers.  He leads over 550 clinicians in the active transition from fee-for-service to value-based care. Prior to joining Genesis, Dr. Feifer served as Aetna’s CMO of national accounts, helping our nation’s largest employers optimize health and productivity.  Before Aetna, he served as VP of clinical program innovation and evaluation at Medco. A graduate of Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University, Dr. Feifer is a board-certified internist with experience in population health, primary care, geriatrics, and health services management.  He is currently an assistant clinical professor at the University of Connecticut.

Rob Fields is senior vice-president and chief medical officer of population health at Mt. Sinai Health System.  His career began by opening a new practice out of residency focusing on using technology for quality improvement and serving the Latino population in Western North Carolina. The practice was the first to use a patient portal and among the first to achieve PCMH level 3 in 2010. In 2012 he spent a year teaching at the community health and family medicine residency at the University of Florida but was recruited to come back to Asheville as the assistant medical director for primary care for Mission Medical Associates. As the ACO planning began in 2013, Mr. Fields led the quality steering committee and helped with the initial planning of what was to become Mission Health Partners. In 2014, he was selected to be the first medical director of the ACO and served as chair of the quality committee. He has held several other leadership positions including chief resident, president of the Western Carolina Medical Society, and medical director of a small free clinic in Asheville among others. 

Jeanette Flood, Vice President of Payer Relations, joined the Delaware Valley ACO after several years in payer contracting/payer relations roles with the Jefferson Health System and more recently Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.  Previously she worked for Aetna Inc. for several years in a variety of capacities including national account manager for large self-insured employers and executive director, Aetna Health Plans of California.  She also served as plan manager and manager of provider relations for ConnectiCare, Inc. a regional HMO, and as director of managed care for Cooper University Hospital and Middlesex Hospital.

Peter Freeman, MPH, is vice-president of the North Carolina Community Health Center Association, and executive director of the Carolina Medical Home Network. In his role, Mr. Freeman supports North Carolina’s FQHCs through oversight of the IPA, HCCN, and ACO, with a primary focus of assisting FQHCs in successfully transitioning to value-based care.  Mr. Freeman received his MPH from DePaul University and has over a decade of experience in the public health field. His prior positions include senior director of chronic disease & population health/quality manager for a Manhattan-based FQHC, program evaluator for a public health consulting firm, and program manager for a pediatric hospital.

Ana Tuya Fulton, MD, FACP, AGSF, is an internist and geriatrician, joined the faculty of Brown University in 2006 and holds associate professorships in medicine and in psychiatry and human behavior.   Dr. Fulton is executive chief of geriatrics for Care New England health system, and medical director for Integra Community Care Network, LLC.  Her clinical and academic work focuses on improving serious illness care for persons with cognitive impairment as well as in integrating geriatrics best practices into primary care, hospital-based care, and accountable care entities.   She has done multiple national presentations in these areas, and has published over 26 peer reviewed articles.  

Wilson Gabbard is the system director for population health operations for UNC Health Care.  In his current role he has direct oversight of the strategic and operational focus of providing innovative services to move UNC Health Care to value based care. Mr. Gabbard was a founding member of the population health services team at UNC Health care and for the past five years has taken on increasing roles in oversight, modeling, and strategy for a team that has grown from 2 to over 140 FTE supporting UNC’s 14 value based contracts.  Prior to coming to UNC, he served on the leadership team of Vidant Medical Group for nearly two years where he led regional operations in Edenton and Windsor North Carolina for 9 primary and specialty care practices as well as the emergency and hospitalist service lines.  He also previously worked at St. Claire Regional Medical Center in bio-medical engineering for five years in Kentucky. Mr. Gabbard received his bachelor and master of business administration from Morehead State University. 

Jennifer Gasperini is senior policy advisor for the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) where she works on federal regulatory issues facing ACOs. Ms. Gasperini brings 10 years of health policy experience on both the state and national levels. She came to NAACOS from the North Carolina Medical Society (NCMS) where she served as the director of health policy, working on a variety of state and federal health policy issues concerning physicians. Before joining the NCMS, she worked at the National Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) where she focused on federal legislative and regulatory issues pertaining to physician quality and payment including ACO issues, and value-based payment programs such as PQRS and the Value Based Payment Modifier. Ms. Gasperini holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism, minor in political science from the Pennsylvania State University and a master’s degree in legislative affairs from the George Washington University.

Amanda Gerlach, JD, MPA as executive director for Mission Health Partners (MHP), a value-driven provider network serving western North Carolina and based in Asheville.  MHP was formed in 2014 and began operating as an ACO in 2015. MHP has successfully generated savings as a Medicare ACO, and is currently engaged in six other value-based arrangements with various Medicare Advantage and commercial payors. Ms. Gerlach helped found MHP and develop the network after serving as director of contracts and policies for Covenant Health Partners, a clinically integrated network. She earned her JD from St. Louis University School of Law and her MPA in healthcare administration from Texas Tech University. 

Richard Gilfillan is CEO of Trinity Health. For more than 30 years, he has developed and worked with teams to build successful care delivery systems in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors focused on delivering high-value care for people and communities. As the first director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), he recruited a team that launched the center in 2010 and worked quickly with payers and providers to develop innovative models for improving patient care and reducing costs. Prior to his appointment at CMMI, Dr. Gilfillan was president and CEO of Geisinger Health Plan and executive vice president of insurance operations for Geisinger Health System. Previously, he was the senior vice president for national network management at Coventry Health Care. He was also the chief medical officer for Independence Blue Cross. Dr. Gilfillan began his career as a board certified family medicine physician. He earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from Georgetown University and an MBA degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Vincent Gordon’s professional career spans more than 30 years and includes public service, managed health care and clinical experiences. His professional career started in the clinical labs of Hahnemann University Hospital as a Medical Technologist. After receiving his MBA from Widener University, Mr. Gordon joined AmeriHealth Caritas, were held the role of associate vice president of network development. In 2011 he was appointed by then PA Governor Tom Corbett, as the deputy secretary of medical assistance programs. In 2015, Mr. Gordon formed the Gordon Policy Group, a frim providing management consulting services to health plans, physicians, hospitals and other health related entities.

Julian Harris, MD, MBA, is president of CareAllies, an innovative population health management services company focused on helping physician groups and delivery systems navigate the transition to value-based care. Dr. Harris joined Cigna in September 2015 to accelerate the company’s delivery of value-based products and solutions to customers and providers in local markets. Prior to Cigna, he served as the associate director for health in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As the federal government’s chief health care budget official, he oversaw $1 trillion in spending and policy for a range of coverage programs. Dr. Harris led OMB’s engagement and oversight of agencies on initiatives as diverse as developing new CMS Medicare ACO and bundled payment models, streamlining the Meaningful Use rules, replacing Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), and establishing the federal government’s 50/90 value-based payment goal.  During his time as the chief executive of the $11 billion Medicaid program in Massachusetts, he led the development of a primary care-centered ACO program, built value-based payment into the country’s first Medicare-Medicaid duals demonstration, and launched the Delivery System Transformation Initiative to accelerate safety net hospitals’ transition to value-based payment.  Dr. Harris trained in internal medicine and primary care at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and he worked as a hospitalist at Cambridge Health Alliance. He graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in health policy & medical ethics from Duke University, and he holds a master of science degree from Oxford University. He is also a graduate of the health care management MBA Program at the Wharton School of Business and the School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania.

Ahmed Haque is the vice president of provider networks at Aledade, Inc. In this capacity, he is responsible for ACO strategy and growth. Prior to joining Aledade, Mr. Haque was the director of the Office of Programs & Engagement in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Additionally, he served as a senior advisor to the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI).  Prior to his appointment to HHS, Mr. Haque was with the National Quality Forum (NQF) where he served as a program designer and subject matter expert for technical assistance and outreach related to electronic clinical quality measures and other health informatics standards used in various hospital and ambulatory quality and payment reporting programs. He also was with the American Hospital Association (AHA) where he focused on health services research related to healthcare policy and translational research on health IT. Prior to AHA, Mr. Haque was founder, principal, and managing director of Reviving Styles, an IT start-up firm.

Scott Hewitt serves as vice president on the payment strategy and innovationfor UnitedHealthcare's national network of over 1,000,000 doctors & health care professionals and over 7000 hospitals. In his current role, Mr. Hewitt oversees a dedicated team accountable for the building and maintenance of UHC’s provider fee schedules, payment appendices, and value based contracting programs across all lines of business (Commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid). Mr. Hewitt has more than 20 years of health care experience, over half of which have been at UHC. Prior to his current role, he held a number of positions within UHC, exposing him to contract negotiations & strategy, reimbursement methodologies, and operations. Scott holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of Notre Dame and a master of public health degree from the University of Minnesota. 

Lisa Hunt, CAHIMS, CHTS, serves as the director of operations and provider relations for the St. Louis Physician Alliance (SLPA) and SLPA ACO. She helped launch the physician network with her employer, United Surgical Partners (USPI), in 2013 and served as the director of network development growing the physician membership from its original 12 doctors to the current 660+. Ms. Hunt has more than two decades of healthcare experience in marketing, provider services and customer relations for academic medical centers, community hospitals, physician practices and ambulance services. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Missouri-Columbia and has been certified by HIMSS and by AHIMA in healthcare technology.

Kimberly Kauffman, MPH, is Summit Medical Group's vice president of value-based care. In her role with Summit, Ms. Kauffman is responsible for their MSSP ACO and for the medical group's value-based contract deliverables with Medicare Advantage and commercial health plans. She leads the care coordination, health education, quality reporting and improvement, risk adjustment and physician engagement teams, and works closely with Summit's data analytics vendor. Prior to joining Summit, Ms. Kauffman was the executive director of a 650+ physician member Independent Physicians' Association in Florida. Ms. Kauffman also worked with hospital and physician leadership in Florida to create a physician hospital organization and prior to that, served as vice president for operations for Senior Healthcare Centers, supporting ten hospitals throughout the southeast. She received her master's from the College of Public Health at the University of Florida. 

Don Klitgaard, MD, FAAFP is the founding CEO and CMO of MedLink Advantage (MLA), a healthcare consulting and ACO management firm. For 15 years, Dr. Klitgaard practiced full scope rural family medicine and served as medical director of the Myrtue Medical Center clinics. During this time, he served as the physician champion for the AAFP’s TransforMED National Demonstration Project and helped lead their subsequent Patient-Centered Medical Home transformation efforts. In 2012, Dr. Klitgaard helped found Heartland Rural Physician Alliance, an Iowa statewide IPA dedicated to helping independent practices thrive. He currently serves as Heartland board chair and ACO medical director for both Medicare Shared Savings and Wellmark BC/BS ACOs. A former Iowa AFP president and former member of the AAFP’s Board of Directors, Dr. Klitgaard currently serves on the AAFP’s Commission on Quality and Practice. He also serves as board chair of the Interstate Postgraduate Medical Association. 

Thomas H. Kloos, MD, is vice president of Atlantic Health System, president of Atlantic ACO, and executive director of the Atlantic MSO, a management services organization which supplies management services to both the Atlantic ACO and Optimus Healthcare Partners ACO. The two ACO’s serve both the MSSP program and commercial relationships and encompass over 80000 attributed Medicare beneficiaries and over 200,000 commercial attributed beneficiaries. Dr. Kloos currently is a board member of the National Association of ACOs. He was the past president of Optimus Healthcare Partners ACO and Vista Health System IPA. On the payer side, he was a trustee and past board vice president of the Affiliated Physicians and Employers Health Plan, a self-funded MEWA plan. Dr. Kloos is a board certified internal medicine practitioner, previously NCQA certified in diabetes care, and was a NCQA recognized level 3 patient centered medical home. He graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School in 1979.

Elissa Langley is the vice president and chief operating officer for Triad HealthCare Network (THN) of the Cone Health System. Her responsibilities include assisting with the development, implementation, and operation of THN, an ACO. She is currently responsible for THN’s operations which includes managing over 95,000 covered lives. She oversees contracting with all payors for THN’s shared savings/risk arrangements, including the Next Generation ACO Program. Additionally, she managed the implementation of a Medicare Advantage Risk Agreement with Humana and North Texas Specialty Physicians and was instrumental in the development of Cone’s new Medicare Advantage Plan called HealthTeam Advantage. Previously, Ms. Langley worked for managed care plans such as Humana and Aetna as a network manager. She was part of the initial U.S. Healthcare expansion team into Atlanta, Georgia which grew to over 100,000 members in its first year of operation. Ms. Langley holds a masters of healthcare administration degree from Duke University and a bachelor of science degree in zoology from Duke University. 

Yvonne LeBlanc is the pharmacy team lead at New England Quality Care Alliance (NEQCA). She received her doctor of pharmacy degree from Northeastern University in 2003 and completed a pharmacy practice residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. Over the past 15 years, Ms. LeBlanc has worked in a variety of pharmacy and medical publishing settings including Johns Hopkins Health-System, Natural Standard Research Collaboration, and Lahey Hospital & Medical Center. She also holds an MBA in medical services management from Johns Hopkins University and a geriatric pharmacy certification.

Danielle Lloyd is the vice president for policy and advocacy as well as deputy director of the Washington, DC office of the Premier Healthcare Alliance. Ms. Lloyd leads Premier’s policy analysis and development. She is a national expert on federal healthcare quality and payment polices impacting hospitals, outpatient facilities and physicians, such as value-based purchasing and alternative payment models. She also plays a leading role in Premier’s large-scale provider collaboratives by helping providers operationalize new federal policies and Premier's non-profit research arm, the Premier Research Institute, to share knowledge broadly across the country. Prior to coming to Premier, Ms. Lloyd worked on an array of healthcare issues including Medicare and Medicaid payment, quality policies, and health information technology for the American Hospital Association, California Hospital Association, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Ms. Lloyd has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and has a master’s degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dana Lustbader, MD, is chair of the department of palliative medicine at ProHEALTH, a large multispecialty ACO serving over 1.2 million patients.  She is also the chief medical officer for Optum Supportive Care, an advanced illness program providing care to people with serious illness utilizing in home visits and telemedicine. Dr. Lustbader is currently working with NCQA to develop national quality standards for community palliative care programs.  She also helped draft the Alternative Payment Model (APM) proposed to CMS for innovative payment models for home palliative care.  Prior to this, Dr. Lustbader worked as a critical care physician at Northwell Health where she served as ICU director, section head of palliative medicine and founding program director of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship.  She is a clinical professor of medicine at Hofstra-Northwell School of Medicine.  Dr. Lustbader is board certified in critical care medicine, internal medicine and palliative medicine. She received her medical degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine, internal medicine residency training at NYU-Bellevue Medical Center and fellowship in critical care medicine at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City.  Dr. Lustbader is a national expert in serious illness care and has served as a consultant for numerous organizations including the American Board of Internal Medicine, the New York Task Force on Life and the Law and the National Academy of Sciences.

Molly MacHarris leads the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) in the Center for Clinical Standards & Quality at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

Robert G. McMullen, MBA, JD, is retired and currently consulting as interim vice president for managed care at Health Quest Systems. Over his career, he has served in various health care delivery systems, generally in teaching and academic medical centers and with large group practices/faculty practices.  Prior to his retirement, Mr. McMullen served as vice president for managed care and executive director of the University of New Mexico’s UNM Health (Employee) Health Plan.  He has designed, negotiated and implemented a number of risk contract and P4P agreements.  His professional interest is focused on population health design, implementation and corresponding analytic and financial implications.

Rob Mechanic, MBA, is executive director of the Institute for Accountable Care, where he is responsible for leading its research agenda, data analytics, and health care learning and improvement activities.  Mr. Mechanic is also a senior fellow at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, where he 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. He was previously senior vice president with the Massachusetts Hospital Association and was vice president with the Lewin Group, a Washington D.C.-based health care consulting firm. His 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.

Jennifer Moore is the chief operating officer of the MaineHealth Accountable Care Organization, whose membership includes 9 acute care hospitals and over 1,400 independent and employed physicians. The MaineHealth ACO contracted with CMS for the Medicare Shared Savings Plan (MSSP) beginning in July 2012 and was successful in its first performance year with MSSP achieving nearly $20 million dollars in savings. Ms. Moore oversees all activities associated with the MSSP and numerous commercial ACO contracts including payer contracting, network management, data operations and analysis, performance improvement programs, and practice support activities. These ACO contracts cover approximately 180,000 Medicare and commercial lives. Ms. Moore has her masters in business administration and over 20 years of experience in the health care industry.  

Dr. Jonathan Nasser is the chief clinical transformation officer at Crystal Run Healthcare.  In this role, he is responsible for instituting clinical programs that enable Crystal Run’s transition from a fee for service to value-based care organization. These programs have focused on improving the patient experience, quality and cost of care.  Dr. Nasser is also the chief medical officer of Crystal Run Health Plans, leveraging these programs to enable the successful medical and quality management activities of Crystal Run’s provider sponsored health plan.  Dr. Nasser is a practicing internist and pediatrician and partner at Crystal Run Healthcare. Dr. Nasser has been an active participant and presenter in a number of regional and national organizations related to health care transformation.  He is the chair of the Quality Steering Committee and member of the executive board for Westchester Health’s DSRIP Performing Provider System. In addition he serves on the program planning committee for the Group Practice Improvement Network.

Noah Nesin, MD, has been a family doctor in Maine since 1986, first in a private, solo practice and then in FQHCs, and has served as chief of staff of Penobscot Valley Hospital, as medical Ddirector of Health Access Network, as chief quality officer at Penobscot Community Heath Care (PCHC), and now as vice president of medical affairs at PCHC.  Throughout his career Dr. Nesin has led efforts in evidence based prescribing and in practice transformation to improve efficiency and to use health care resources judiciously.  Dr. Nesin serves as the chair of the Academic Detailing Advisory Committee, the body which oversees the Maine Independent Clinical Information Service, sits on the Advisory Committee for the Lunder Dineen Health Education Alliance of Maine, is a member of the Prescription Monitoring Program Policy Advisory Group, and serves on the board of the Hanley Center and of the Maine Public Health Association.  Dr. Nesin served as a member of the Steering Committee of Maine’s $33 million State Innovation Model grant, was a co-founder of Maine Quality Counts’ Maine Chronic Pain Collaborative and is a member of AHRQ’s National Integration Advisory Council, which is currently focused on treatment of substance use disorders across the country.  

Stephen Nuckolls is the CEO of Coastal Carolina Health Care and has served in this capacity since helping form the organization in 1997.   His responsibilities include direct management of the 60 provider multi-specialty physician-owned medical practice and its ACO that was selected by CMS in the initial April 2012 round and is currently in a 2-sided risk model.  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, served as board chair from 2016-2017, and currently serves as treasurer. 

Kavita Patel is a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, she was the managing director of clinical transformation at the Center for Health Policy. Dr. Patel is a practicing primary care internist at Johns Hopkins Medicine. She also served in the Obama Administration as director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the White House. As a senior aide to Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s senior advisor, Dr. Patel played a critical role in policy development and evaluation of policy initiatives connected to health reform, financial regulatory reform, and economic recovery issues. Dr. Patel also has a deep understanding of Capitol Hill from her time spent on the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s staff. As deputy staff director on health, she served as a policy analyst and trusted aide to the Senator and was part of the senior staff of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee under Sen. Kennedy’s leadership. She also has an extensive research and clinical background, having worked as a researcher at the RAND Corporation and as a practicing physician in both California and Oregon. She is a previous Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar, and while at Brookings, she will return to providing clinical care as an internal medicine practitioner. She earned her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center and her masters in public health from the University of California Los Angeles. 

John Pilotte is the director of the performance-based payment policy staff in the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Mr. Pilotte manages a team of analysts responsible for designing and implementing the MSSP for ACOs as well as other value-based purchasing programs for hospitals, physicians and other providers. Previously, he was the director of the division of payment policy demonstrations in CMS’s Office of Research, Development and Information. Prior to joining CMS, he was a senior consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers’ health care practice; and an associate on the government relations staff of the National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions. He has a master’s in health policy.  

Douglas Pogue, MD, serves as president for BJC Medical Group, and is the chief administrative officer of the BJC Accountable Care Organization.  He is responsible for providing clinical leadership to over 500 employed providers in 125 practice sites and 7 hospitalist programs.  Dr. Pogue manages all aspects of the medical group’s day-to-day operations, and is focused on reshaping the ambulatory and hospital-based practices to succeed at accountable health care, population health, and risk-based contracting. Central to his leadership approach is engaging and empowering physicians to redesign their workflows and lead change for their practice teams.  Prior to his various executive leadership roles, Dr. Pogue maintained a thriving internal medicine practice at Missouri Baptist Medical Center, serving as associate chief of medicine from 2010 through 2016, and as NFL team physician for the St. Louis Rams from 2000-2012. Dr. Pogue received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis.

Denise Prince is senior vice president and chief operations officer for population health at Mount Sinai Health Partners’ Clinical Operations. Most recently, she served as system vice president, value-based care and vice president, population health at Geisinger Health System. Ms. Prince co-led Geisinger’s participation in the CMS Innovation Center's Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Initiative and was the chief executive officer for the Keystone ACO. In addition, she provided senior leadership to the Care Continuum Service Line with operational responsibility for walk-in clinics and post-acute services. Previously, she served as the founder and managing partner for Geisinger Ventures. She was awarded an MBA and MPH from the University of California, Berkeley and her BA from Mount Holyoke College. Ms. Prince currently serves as an advisory board member for the Women Business Leaders of the US Health Care Industry and for the Central PA Food Bank.

Zak Ramadan-Jradi, MD, MBA is the executive director and vice president of accountable care, MultiCare Connected Care. MultiCare Connected Care is a physician-led accountable care organization of doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals who provide care for defined populations within specific quality, safety, and cost targets will offer the full range of adult and pediatric primary care and specialty care services. Dr. Ramadan-Jradi’s long and diverse health care background includes extensive experience in payor contracting, network management, and clinical performance with Premera BlueCross and Regence where he worked for several years before serving as director of operations and cellular therapeutics for Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. An internist, Dr Ramadan-Jradi did his clinical practicum at the London Hospital Medical College. He then pursued a career in health care administration, earning his MBA from Seattle University.

Bob Rauner, MD, MPH, FAAFP, splits his time between 2 day jobs working 70 percent of the time as chief medical officer of OneHealth Nebraska ACO and the other 30 percent of his time as president of Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln working on community health projects.  OneHealth Nebraska is the 2^nd physician-led ACO he has helped build in Nebraska. He has an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Creighton University, a medical degree from the University of Nebraska, completed his residency training in family medicine and has a master of public health from Johns Hopkins University. 

Paige Roth, MSW, LSW, CRS, is the addiction recovery specialist in the department of emergency and hospital medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network. Ms. Roth earned a masters of social work degree with a specialization in behavioral health from Marywood University.  She is a licensed social worker and a certified recovery specialist in the state of Pennsylvania.  She was instrumental in starting services to connect patients with substance use disorders to treatment providers at the Network’s three hospitals in the Lehigh Valley.  She heads the Network’s committee tasked with community outreach and education concerning the issues of substance use disorder and the escalating opioid epidemic. 

Anthony Reed, associate vice president for accountable care initiatives, has oversight of the Keystone Accountable Care Organization, LLC, an MSSP Track One ACO serving over 70,000 Medicare beneficiaries. He also represents Geisinger by serving as a speaker and member for several national organizations dedicated to accountable care and alternate-care payment models. He is in his 14th year of service at Geisinger and is currently part of the population health solutions department of the Geisinger Clinic. His previous roles at Geisinger include director of business development for Geisinger Diversified Services and program director for VITALine Infusion Pharmacy Services. Before his return to Geisinger in 2013 he served for seven years as a product director for B. Braun Medical, Inc. with product development responsibilities for their line of infusion pumps and accessories.

Eric Riley is the chief administrative officer of Lexington Clinic, Central Kentucky’s largest and oldest multispecialty medical group.  He leads a team of operational, clinical and data professionals responsible for the strategic implementation of Lexington Clinic’s enterprise wide operations, population health and payer transformation initiatives.  Mr. Riley has over 32 years of experience in a variety of health care industry settings including: large group physician practice management, university and community affiliated hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, community cancer centers, dialysis facilities, imaging centers, reference laboratories and extensive experience in provider-payer contracting. 

Amy Russell, MD, worked as a full spectrum family physician for 17 years at Clinica Campesina, a community health center in Colorado. As the VP of clinical services at Clinica, she led a team who cared for 42,000 low income, uninsured people in the Denver metropolitan area and she implemented initiatives including shared medical appointments, advanced access, team based care and complex care management to achieve high performing clinical outcomes. In 2013, Dr. Russell joined the family medicine faculty at Mountain Area Health Education Center where she provides patient care. For the past four years, she has served as both faculty and as the chief of community medicine at Mission Health. She led the integration and growth of the primary care at Mission to include 23 practices that serve the 18 counties of WNC. Under her leadership, the team has focused on improving population health by integrating nursing, care management, pharmacy, tele-health and behavioral health in primary care. Dr. Russell also supports the success of the ACO by serving as a Mission Health Partner board member and Quality Committee member.

Michael Rossi, MD, MBA, FACC is chief physician executive for Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) and president of Lehigh Valley Physician Group – LVHN’s employed medical group with more than 1,400 providers. He is also a board member of NAACOS, board chair of LVHN’s ACO, – a Track 1 MSSP ACO with 40,000 attributed lives – clinical professor of cardiovascular medicine at USF-Morsani College of Medicine, and holder of the Anderson Endowed Chair for Medical Executive Leadership at LVHN. Prior to his current role, Dr. Rossi was the chief of cardiology, medical director of the heart center, and holder of the Walter & Hazel May Endowed Chair of Cardiology at LVHN, as well as a clinical professor of medicine at Penn State University College of Medicine. Dr. Rossi is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in both internal medicine and cardiovascular disease. He received a BS degree in biology from Brown University and his MD degree from the Brown University School of Medicine. 

Katherine Schneider is president and CEO of the Delaware Valley Accountable Care Organization and as such, she provides leadership, strategic direction and ongoing administration and management for all aspects of the ACO. Previously, Dr. Schneider was executive vice president and chief medical officer of Medecision. She also served as the senior vice president for health engagement at AtlantiCare, where she led the system's strategic transformational work toward accountable care and engaging individuals in their own health. In her previous position at Middlesex Health System, she spearheaded projects embedding chronic disease management in the delivery system and value based payment models, including Medicare's Physician Group Practice demonstration project. She is a graduate of Smith College and Columbia University. She is a board-certified family physician with an additional degree in epidemiology and is also in the first cohort of U.S. physicians to achieve subspecialty certification in clinical informatics.

Beth Souder - As the director of post-acute network for the Delaware Valley ACO, Beth Souder is responsible for effective collaboration with post-acute leadership of ACO Member Institutions and post-acute partners to promote the optimization of all quality improvement, utilization management and care management activities for patients in post-acute settings.  Prior to joining the DVACO, Ms. Souder served as a director at Main Line Health for 17 years and has extensive clinical, analytical, operational, and Lean Six Sigma Process Improvement experience as well as recent experience in inpatient care coordination.  She holds a BA in cognitive science, artificial intelligence and an MS in physical therapy. 

Jennifer Stephens, MD is a practicing general internist at Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN). Her undergraduate training was at Ursinus College with medical studies at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Stephens completed her residency training at Lehigh Valley Health Network with a subsequent year as chief medical resident. Dr. Stephen’s career has included different administrative positions within the areas of graduate medical education, ambulatory healthcare, quality management and practice leadership. She is currently the medical director of the LVHN ACO and Lehigh Valley Physician Group. Her clinical site is a PCMH NCQA Level 3 certified internal medicine practice. Her focus is on driving patient-centric, team-based, high value care.

Sandra Van Trease is group president for BJC HealthCare, one of the largest nonprofit health care organizations in the United States. Its 30,000 employees serve patients through its 15 hospitals and multiple community health locations. Ms. Van Trease provides strategic leadership and direction to the BJC Collaborative LLC, six independent non-profit hospitals associated with BJC HealthCare.  She also is responsible for overall business and growth strategies for a select group of BJC’s community hospitals and the BJC Medical Group. In 2012, she was appointed president of BJC HealthCare’s Accountable Care Organization and leads BJC’s overall efforts in population health. Ms. Van Trease joined BJC in 2004 following a successful career as president and CEO of UNICARE, a managed health care company. She also held several leadership positions with RightCHOICE Managed Care. Prior to RightCHOICE, she spent 12 years with Price Waterhouse.

Andrew Webster MS, ASA, MAAA, is co-founder and lead actuary at Validate Health, the industry’s only financial forecasting and optimization platform built exclusively for ACOs. He specializes in payer contract modeling (including MSSP, Next Gen, Medicare Advantage and commercial), forecasting shared savings under different decision scenarios and risk hedging strategies to lock in expected outcomes. He also serves in a consulting role for NAACOS, quantifying the financial impact of policy changes and designing methodologies for analyzing nationwide datasets. 

Alan Weil became the editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, the nation's leading journal at the intersection of health, health care, and policy, on June 1, 2014. For the previous decade he was the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research and policy organization. Previously, he directed the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism project, one of the largest privately funded social policy research projects ever undertaken in the United States; held a cabinet position as executive director of the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing; and was assistant general counsel in the Massachusetts Department of Medical Security. Mr. Weil is a frequent speaker on national and state health policy, Medicaid, federalism, and implementation of the Affordable Care Act. He is the co-editor of two books, publishes regularly in peer-reviewed journals, and has testified before Congress multiple times. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and served for six years on the NAM (and its predecessor, the Institute of Medicine) Board on Health Care Services. In 2016 the U.S. Controller General appointed Weil to a three-year term on the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC). He is a Trustee of the Consumer Health Foundation in Washington, DC. He is the director of the Aspen Institute's Health Strategy Group. He served for twelve years on the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, and for ten years on the Board of Directors of the Essential Hospitals Institute (and its predecessor, the National Public Health & Hospitals Institute). He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley, a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Debbie Welle-Powell serves as the chief population health officer for Essentia Health. Essentia is certified as an ACO Level III by NCQA, and recently chose Track 3 for 30,000 MSSP lives – one of thirty-four in the country. As the SVP of accountable care, she leads the accountable care division with strategic and operational responsibilities for population health, system quality, and system strategy and performance excellence/six sigma. Currently they manage 150,000 at-risk Commercial, Medicaid and Medicare lives via seven payer contracts. Additionally, she has oversight for the balanced scorecard and strategic activities to help position Essentia Health as the preferred provider of care within the communities they serve.   Prior to Essentia, Ms. Welle-Powell was the vice president of accountable care and payer strategy for SCL Health System. As a seasoned executive she led the strategic and market activities for accountable health readiness while developing innovative products, services, and technologies.  Ms. Welle-Powell has more than twenty years-experience in executive healthcare positions within multi-state regions and integrated provider delivery system. She has extensive experience leading mergers and acquisitions and developing reimbursement and network development strategies supporting full global capitation, professional services risk, PCMH, and bundled payments contracts with employers, carriers and state and federal agencies. Ms. Welle-Powell is extremely active in the community and has served on many for profit/non-profit national and local boards including several committee appointments by the Governor of Colorado. She taught for the past ten years at both Denver University and Regis in Colorado. 

Kay Ellen Werhun, DNP, MBA, RN, NE-BC, is the administrator of integrated care coordination at Lehigh Valley Health Network, an academic, community, Magnet-designated hospital system in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Ms. Werhun received her MBA from DeSales University and a DNP in health systems executive leadership from the University of Pittsburgh. She is responsible for the leadership of the population health department, transition of care call center and inpatient care management at LVHN which provides support to high and rising risk patient populations in primary and specialty care practices, care management payer strategies and safe transitions of care.