Francis Balucan
James Barr, MD, presently serves as VP of physician value-based programs at Atlantic Health System. His role includes chief medical officer of the Atlantic Health System and Optimus Healthcare Partner ACOs, providing value analytics and data science capabilities. His areas of expertise include population risk intelligence, clinical variance management, patient retention/growth, cost impact analytics and precision care. He manages physician engagement, clinical integration, patient engagement and overall performance for over 3,000 providers and 500,000 members in value-based arrangements. Dr. Barr is a family physician with 32 years of practice experience at Pleasant Run Family Physicians. He obtained his medical degree from Hahnemann University and is an expert in health care transformation models.
Anna Basevich leads enterprise partnerships at Arcadia, working with customers to build out tailored population health strategies that leverage Arcadia’s analytics and workflow tools. She has worked with Arcadia customers – including health plans, ACOs, independent physician groups, IDNs, and life sciences organizations – across the country to develop and execute strategies to succeed in value-based care.
She has managed implementations and client services work at Arcadia and at Deloitte Consulting. She received her bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.
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, she 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 for a variety of areas including inpatient and outpatient hospitals, physicians, ambulatory surgical centers, clinical laboratories, and Part B drugs. 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. She has an M.A. in policy studies from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in history from Tufts University.
Kevin Biese, MD, serves as an associate professor of emergency medicine (EM) and internal medicine, vice-chair of academic affairs, and director of the division of geriatrics emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, as well as, vice-chair of the board of the UNC Health Care Senior Alliance. He also serves as a consultant with West Health, a San Diego based philanthropic organization dedicated to improving care for older adults. With the support of the John A. Hartford and West Health Foundations, he is the co-leader alongside Dr. Ula Hwang of the national Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative serving as PI of the implementation arm. He is grateful to chair the first board of governors for the ACEP Geriatric Emergency Department Accreditation Program which has now improved the quality of care in over 250 emergency departments in 40 states and 4 countries.
Tom Boggs currently serves as president of Bridges Health Partners, a joint venture population health services organization and clinically integrated network (CIN) between 4 health systems in the Pittsburgh region with nearly 1,100 doctors and 8 Hospitals. Prior to Bridges, he served as the president and CEO of Healthcare Solutions Network, a joint venture CIN in Cincinnati founded by TriHealth and St. Elizabeth Healthcare. In addition to these roles, Mr. Boggs held several roles at Aultman Health Foundation, a vertically integrated delivery system in Ohio, as president, medical group/MSO and VP of finance, along with a stint at BayCare Health System as network COO/CFO. He received his BS and MBA degrees from the University of Akron, is currently licensed as a CPA and has also achieved designation as a fellow by the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) and as a managed healthcare professional by AHIP.
Allison Brennan, MPP, 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, Allison 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, Allison 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. Allison 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. Allison 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 serves as senior vice president of clinical integration and physician services for Trinity Health, one of the largest multi-institutional Catholic health care delivery systems in the nation, serving more than 30 million people across 22 states. In this role, she provides leadership and strategic direction within the evolving accountable healthcare environment, with an emphasis on clinical integration and transformation under alternative payment models. Ms. Brower joined Trinity Health from Atrius Health, where she last served as vice president of population health, building and executing the essential capabilities required to achieve strong financial and clinical outcomes within integrated care models under value-based reimbursement, particularly for publicly insured populations. Her Medicare ACO team delivered year over year improvement in cost and quality, and the highest per-capita savings in an independent evaluation of the Pioneer model. Prior to Atrius Health, Ms. Brower spent fifteen years in operational, financial, and contracting leadership roles at Urban Medical Group, a Massachusetts non-profit healthcare organization specializing in the care of medically complex, chronically ill populations across a community-based, long-term care continuum. During that time, she launched a PACE program and other innovative, capitated contracts for medically complex populations and served as Principal Investigator for a multi-year research project analyzing cost and quality outcomes to support payment reform. Ms. Brower received her BA from Smith College and MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business.
Adam Brown is a data and analytics enthusiast who enjoys using data-driven decisions for process and health improvements. As a director in the population health and analytics IT department of Mount Sinai Health Partners, he is directing and leading IT activities enabling the development and delivery of multiple solutions needed to implement Mount Sinai’s population health strategy. Throughout his career, he has garnered experience in many facets of IT services and solutions. He has extensive experience with enterprise architecture, software development, data management, customer service and support. His particular aim is to use technology to produce additional efficiencies in the delivery of healthcare utilizing data and analytics to empower caregivers.
Paula Burleson serves as the manager of government programs at Novant Health, a three-state integrated network of more than 2,300 physicians and over 35,000 employees that provide care at nearly 800 locations, including 15 medical centers and hundreds of outpatient facilities and physician clinics. She works with system leaders and physician partners to advance population health goals and value-based care initiatives in support of Novant Health’s participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) and North Carolina’s newly established Medicaid Managed Care model. Since joining Novant Health, she has served in a broad range of roles – from physician clinic administrator to Epic-certified value-based care analyst – throughout the system. She received her undergraduate degree in business administration from Appalachian State University and is currently pursuing her master of public health (MPH) degree at East Carolina University.
Kimberly Busenbark is the owner of Wilems Resource Group, LLC a boutique consulting firms specializing in compliance and engagement solutions under Medicare value-based programs. Her first-hand knowledge of accountable care organization (ACO) and direct contracting entity (DCE) compliance and monitoring is unmatched in the industry. She is passionate about finding realistic answers to regulatory challenges. 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 program as the ACO compliance officer for Collaborative Health Systems’ 35 Shared Savings Program ACOs. During this time, she was responsible for the implementation and oversight of the compliance program for each of the ACO’s. In 2015, she started Wilems Resource Group. Since then, WRG has continued to grow, and has helped ACOs and DCEs across the country remain compliant and be successful within the Medicare Shared Savings Program, the Next Generation ACO Model and, now, the Global and Professional Direct Contracting Model. Ms. 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.
Bradd Busick is the senior vice president and chief information officer at MultiCare Health System and has been featured in CIO Magazine, TED and recognized by Constellation Research as one of the top 150 innovative CXO’s in the country. He has been hired to deliver value to the enterprise by proactively offering broad, cutting-edge approaches for growing business and creating innovation across the organization for organizations such as Boeing, Ralph Lauren, Ford and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Mr. Busick has a bachelor of science and MBA from Pacific Lutheran University, with an emphasis in technology and innovation management. He is a certified Change Management practitioner, a board member of the PNW Chapter of Association of Change Management Professionals (ACMP), recognized by the Business Examiner as one of South Sound’s 40 under 40 and is an adjunct faculty member in the Morken School of Business at Pacific Lutheran University.
Jack Cappitelli, MD, is chief medical officer at Summit Health. As chief medical officer he is responsible for clinical operations and leadership for urgent care, primary care, and multispecialty practices. He oversees Summit Health’s medical care model that is focused on delivering high quality, value-based health care – orchestrated around the patient. Prior to Summit Health, Dr. Cappitelli was president and managing partner at New Jersey Associates in Medicine, where he practiced internal medicine since 1998.
Alysen Casaccio is a RN-BC board certified in nurse informatics with experience using several EHRs. In addition to multiple Epic EHR certifications, she is also trained in change acceleration process and executive coaching. In her role at Mingle Health, she leads the consulting team and frequently blogs, delivers webinars, and speaks about CMS quality programs.
Christy Cawthon is the senior director of medical economics for Southwestern Health Resources, a national leader in population-based healthcare. She has over 20 years of experience in advanced healthcare analytics. During her tenure at SWHR she has been responsible for helping to develop, implement, and manage Medicare payment methodologies and has been instrumental in implementing both MSSP and NGACO, the top performing ACO in the US for three years in a row. Her development of the financial infrastructure has supported the network’s growth to over 750,000 lives. Currently, she oversees SWHR’s actuarial services, provider compensation, regulatory administration, and medical economics.
David Clain presently serves as VP of strategy at HDAI, a predictive analytics company. He began his career at The Advisory Board Company, a healthcare research and technology firm, where he focused on revenue cycle operations and accountable care strategy. As one of the firm’s experts on payment reform, he advised health system CFOs during the transition to value-based payment, with a particular focus on the financial and operational implications of bundled payment and shared savings contracts. He later worked as a senior manager for research at athenahealth, an EHR vendor, developing best practices and strategic guidance for physician group leaders based on insights from the country’s most complete source of EHR and practice management data.
Melissa Cohen, JD, joined Aurrera Health Group in April 2021 as vice president for Medicare. She has extensive experience in both the public and private sector leading teams responsible for the design and implementation of alternative payment models for health care providers participating in the Medicare, Medicaid and Commercial insurance programs. She began her career as a litigator in the NY Metropolitan area and has been passionate about health care delivery system reform since viewing firsthand the effects of our fragmented system as a medical malpractice defense attorney. She joined the CMS Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) at its inception in 2011 and drove the design and implementation of payment models across the care continuum including Pioneer ACO, Next Generation ACO, Bundled Payments for Care Improvement, Comprehensive End-Stage Renal Disease Care, Value Based Insurance Design, and the Medication Therapy Management Model. She worked closely with the federal Office of General Counsel and Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to determine the legal framework and the waivers necessary for successful implementation of these models. She also led the rulemaking process on the expansion of Pioneer ACO into the Medicare Shared Savings Program, the Advance Payment Model Section of the Medicare And Chip Reauthorization Act and was the CMS liaison for the revised SAMHSA 42 CFR Part 2 Rule. In her last year at CMMI, she was responsible for management of the Center’s 10-billion-dollar budget and investment portfolio. Prior to Aurrera Health, Ms. Cohen was the staff vice president of payment innovation and strategy at Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield where she led value-based contracting across all lines of business with a focus on provider enablement and alignment to product and benefit design. She was also responsible for leading work on Anthem’s new high performing provider designation that is used for the development of its national high performance network set to go live in 2022. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a law degree from Fordham University and a master’s in public administration with a focus on health policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Jane Eilbacher is director of payment innovation in value-based solutions at Anthem, Inc. where she leads initiatives related to Anthem’s national primary care relationships and supporting independent physicians in value-based care arrangements across Anthem’s lines of business. Prior to joining Anthem, she spent four years at the CMS Innovation Center working on ACO initiatives and new model development, including designing and implementing the Next Generation ACO Model. She also served in an advisory capacity for leadership of the Seamless Care Models Group, which oversees initiatives across Medicare fee-for-service and Parts C and D. She began her career at the Association of American Medical Colleges working on hospital payment and regulatory issues, specifically related to academic medical centers and payment reform. She also led AAMC’s participation in CMS’ bundled payment initiative.
Daniel J. Elliott, MD, is the executive director of the eBrightHealth Accountable Care Organization (EBH ACO), and senior medical director for value-based programs and network performance at ChristianaCare. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing strategic, clinical, and financial performance for EBH ACO, a Medicare-Shared Savings Program including 4 health systems and multiple private practice and Federally-qualified health centers with over 40,000 Medicare beneficiaries. Prior to his current role, he served as medical director for Christiana Care Quality Partners (CCQP), a network of physicians and other health care providers working to improve the quality and value of medical care in Delaware. Prior to serving with CCQP, he served as the associate chair for research and scholarly activity in the Christiana Care Department of Medicine. He was the project co-director and director of evaluation for “Bridging the Divides,” which was funded by a $10M Innovation Award from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Dr. Elliott earned a B.A. in economics and political science from Duke University. He earned his medical degree at Jefferson Medical College as a Delaware Institute for Medical Education and Research scholar.
Robert Fields, MD, is a family medicine physician and serves as the EVP/chief population health officer at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. In this role, Dr. Fields leads a network of hospitals and physicians managing $3.5 billion dollars of medical spend for over 450,000 patients in the downstate region. He also leads system strategy for managed care and value-based contracting and revenues. Dr. Fields began his career as an independent primary care physician serving all ages with a particular concentration on underserved Latino patients in Western North Carolina. He held various leadership positions including serving as the CMO of the area’s first ACO. Dr. Fields came to Mount Sinai in March of 2018 as the SVP and CMO for population health. Dr. Fields serves as the board chair of the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) and serves on the board of America’s Physician Groups (APG). He is also a member and chair for various national committees on quality and measure development for the National Quality Foundation and CMS. He earned his medical degree from the University Of Florida College Of Medicine, and completed a family medicine residency at the Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, NC where he was chief resident. Dr. Fields earned his master of health administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Howard Follis, MD, is a urologist with nearly 30 years of practice under his belt. He is passionate about optimizing provider workflows and believes that decreasing the healthcare IT burden on providers will increase the quality of patient care in the long run. This perspective has motivated his development of Juxly Vault, a FHIR application embedded in Epic, Cerner, Allscripts Professional, Allscripts TouchWorks, and athenaClinicals. By operating at the intersection of payers and providers in risk-based operations, Howard has understood that providers can receive more accurate reimbursements to cover the increased costs of caring for patients with costly chronic diseases.
Gregory Gadbois, MD, is a board-certified family physician and currently serves as executive medical director at naviHealth. Throughout his career, he has focused on increasing the value of health care for his patients and the community. Prior to naviHealth he was medical director for Priority Health, a regional health plan in Michigan, where part of his responsibilities included supporting home-based palliative care services for vulnerable populations. Before that, Dr. Gadbois practiced general medicine at Spectrum Health Medical Group for 15 years, during which time he held multiple leadership roles, including chairman of the board. He earned his M.D. from Rush Medical College and his B.S. in kinesiology and exercise science from the University of Illinois.
Chris Garcia, MD, is the medical director of clinical informatics at Labcorp and is board certified in anatomic and clinical pathology. He completed a fellowship in pathology informatics at Massachusetts General Hospital and has developed expertise in digital pathology, computational pathology, and laboratory analytics. He works closely with Labcorp’s value-based care customer solutions team in developing and supporting laboratory analytics products.
Jennifer Gasperini is the director of regulatory and quality affairs 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.
Clif Gaus, Sc.D. is currently president and CEO of the National Association of ACOs which he helped found in 2012. NAACOS is the only national organization owned and managed by ACOs. It advocates for ACOs on policy and offers shared learning experiences through conferences, webinars, forums and work groups. Dr. Gaus has a diverse background as a public servant, entrepreneur and health executive. He served in senior health positions under Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Clinton. In the 1970’s and 80’s, as associate administrator of HCFA (now CMS), he directed the development of a broad range of innovations in health care financing and delivery, including the DRG hospital payment system, RBRVS physician payment system, Medicare Hospice Programs and Medicare payment of Physician Assistants. From 1994 to 1997 he was the Administrator of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now AHRQ).
In the late 90’s Dr. Gaus held the position of executive vice president and chief administrative officer of WellPoint Health Networks Inc. Prior to WellPoint, he was senior vice president of the national Kaiser Permanente Health System in Oakland, California. From 2002-10 he served on the Board of Directors of the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Stanford University. In recent years he has consulted for a number of prominent organizations, including a six month engagement with the Administrator of CMS working on the ACO regulations and the start-up of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). He holds a master’s degree in health administration from the University of Michigan and a Doctorate of Science in health care management from The Johns Hopkins University.
Josh Gray leads analytic partnerships at Health Data Analytics Institute, where he serves as a vice president. Previously, he launched and managed the research department at AthenaHealth, the nation’s largest cloud-based electronic health record vendor and worked as a managing director at the Advisory Board Company and a manager at the Boston Consulting Group.
Mark Gwynne, MD, is president and executive medical director for UNC Health Alliance, University of North Carolina’s Clinically Integrated Network, Next Generation ACO and Population Health Services Organization. He brings experience developing high value clinically integrated networks and data driven, value-based care delivery to complex patients across diverse geographic regions. He is particularly interested in new alternative payment models designed to maximize health and control costs across populations. He has significant experience in effectively integrating care between healthcare settings including ambulatory providers, hospital systems, post-acute partners and community-based organizations. Dr. Gwynne is a clinician educator and administrator with more than 15 years of faculty experience teaching interdisciplinary learners and developing the next generation of care teams. He is mission-driven and committed to ensuring the highest quality of care is delivered to all patients, particularly those most vulnerable to poor outcomes.
Rose Kakoza, MD, is a board-certified internist at ChristianaCare where she serves as senior clinical network director for population health and medical director for the health system’s Medicaid Accountable Care Organization (Delaware Medicaid Quality Partners). In this role, she oversees the strategic development and growth of the Medicaid ACO network for ChristianaCare. This includes the design and scale of an effective models of care delivery and the development of innovative population health management programs and services focused on the unique needs of Medicaid patients while controlling costs. She also oversees CareVio, population health’s case management organization supporting approximately 100,000 risk lives across the clinical network. She brings extensive experience to this role, including expertise in population health, managing and improving care delivery in large health care systems with complex physician networks and community partnerships. Previously, Dr. Kakoza served as assistant medical director for Medicaid at Partners Healthcare and as the medical director for the Medicaid ACO at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She is highly regarded for her primary and specialty care-based innovations, which focus on medically complex patients, social determinants of health and complex behavioral health management. Dr. Kakoza holds an MPH from Harvard School of Public Health, an MD from Harvard Medical School and a BA in sociology, cum laude, from Harvard College.
Kimberly Kauffman is Best Value Healthcare’s COO with a special focus on value-based care operations. In her role, she is responsible for the transition from fee-for-service to fee-for-value. In support of value-based contracts with CMMI, Medicare Advantage, commercial health plans and Medicaid managed care, she leads the care coordination, health education, integrated programs, quality reporting and improvement, risk adjustment and provider engagement teams and works closely with health plan partners. Prior to joining Best Value Healthcare, Ms. Kauffman was the chief value based care officer for Summit Medical Group, a physician-owned primary care group with 300 providers and 300,000 active patients. Prior to that role, she managed a large independent physicians’ association in Florida and also worked with hospital and physician leadership to create several regional physician hospital organizations. She received her master’s degree from the College of Public Health at the University of Florida.
Thomas Kloos, MD, is executive director of the Atlantic Health 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 76,000 attributed Medicare beneficiaries and over 370,000 commercial attributed beneficiaries Over 20% of those beneficiaries are in at-risk contracts. He is a NAACOS board member and past chair. He is president of Atlantic ACO and a board member of Optimus Healthcare Partners, a physician established ACO. He has served as past president and medical director of Vista Health System IPA. He also is a vice president at Atlantic Health System. Dr. Kloos is a board-certified internal medicine practitioner and has been a NCQA recognized level 3 Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH). He graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School in 1979 and from Rutgers University in 1975.
Amy Kotch is Salient’s principal business consultant working with ACOs and MSOs nationwide. Her focus is on continuous performance improvement and the transition of care from fee-for-service to value-based care. She received her master’s in health administration from Florida Atlantic University, a bachelor’s of science from the University of Miami and a master certification in population health. She is a current member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and hopes to become a fellow in the near future. Her passion is in deriving strategic and innovative solutions to the constantly changing healthcare environment.
Gary Jacobs currently serves as the executive director of VillageMD’s Center for Public Policy. The Center manages the companies national and grass roots advocacy efforts, coordinates the VillageMD Political Action Committee and represents the company’s interests through the various trade associations and coalitions it is engaged in as well as before Congress, the Administration and before state governments. He is a seasoned health care executive with a wide breadth of experience in the government program’s market and a concentration on Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, Medicare Supplement, long-term care, public and private exchanges, individual products and payer/provider collaborations. He has a successful history of developing, selling, and acquiring health care companies. Recognized for quickly assessing the big picture and implementing workable plans to increase revenue and profitability targets, he has a keen understanding of public policy and its role in influencing a program’s profitability and ultimate success.
Pauline Lapin is the director for the Seamless Care Models Group (SCMG) in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). She oversees and provides guidance in the development and implementation of innovative payment and delivery models related to advanced primary care and accountable care organizations, namely the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus, Next Generation ACO, and the Comprehensive ESRD Care models, as well as the recently announced Primary Care First and Direct Contracting initiatives. Her group also manages health plan innovation models in Medicare Parts C and D, including the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design, Enhanced Medication Therapy Management, and Part D Modernization models. She has been in federal service at CMS for over 25 years, previously serving as deputy director of SCMG, and as a division director in the office of research, development and information, where she oversaw the design and implementation of a variety of demonstrations, including those related to medical home/advanced primary care practice and prevention. She holds a master of health science degree from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and is a PhD dropout.
Margaret (Margie) Latrella is director of quality and clinical services at St. Joseph’s Health Partners. With 30+ years working as an acute care RN and a cardiac APN in both hospital and physician practice settings, she applies her clinical experience to her role as the director of quality and clinical services, which focuses on clinical programming, quality improvement interventions and reporting for value-based programs. She has demonstrated success in total cost of care savings in two-sided risk agreements including an MSSP ACO and CMS BPCI-A program by developing collaborative workflows between the hospital, subacute facilities, and physician practices for comprehensive care coordination necessary for success. She also led technology implementation to monitor patients in SNFs, which has played a major role in reduced readmissions and decreased LOS in PAC facilities. Both physiological and social determinants of health are considered to ensure programming results in high quality outcomes across the continuum of care as patients transition from hospital to PAC and as they manage chronic and complex disease processes at home.
Jeff Lasilli has worked for healthcare IT vendors IDX, GE and Allscripts leading service and product teams for 25 years. As a Lean Six Sigma blackbelt at GE, he learned tools and techniques to design, measure and improve quality to maximize value. He joined Mingle five years ago to help our teams and clients succeed in quality programs.
Yates Lennon, MD, is the president of CHESS Health Solutions, an organization that collaborates with providers and health systems to transform patient care from a fee-for-service to a fee-for-value payment model. During his tenure he has led a period of growth at CHESS from 80,000 patients in value-based agreements in 2018 to over 200,000 lives in 2021. He also leads the CHESS MSSP and NextGen Accountable Care Organizations. Dr. Lennon has a deep understanding of operations and how to engage physicians and staff. His expertise allows him to develop initiatives that assist providers in transforming patient care. An Ob/Gyn by training, he began his administrative career by working to improve the patient experience. He also has a wealth of experience in quality. Dr. Lennon received his master’s in medical management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Jessica Martensen is the senior director of population care management for Essentia Health. She has a broad range of experience spanning inpatient, public health, and post-acute settings and is passionate about quality, patient safety, and operational efficiency. Growing up in North Dakota, she has a special interest in rural healthcare and promoting health equity. She graduated with a bachelor of science in nursing and Spanish from Dickinson State University. She has her master’s in business administration from the College of St. Scholastica and is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Robert E. Mechanic is executive director of the Institute for Accountable Care, a non-profit research institute specializing in evaluating the impact of accountable care programs and providing custom analytics and program evaluation services to the ACO community. He is also senior fellow at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. His research focuses on health care payment systems and the adaptation of organizations to new payment models. He has helped a diverse array of ACOs assess their performance and identify areas for improvement helped dozens of hospitals and health systems prepare for Medicare bundled payment. Mr. Mechanic’s research and writing have been influential in the design of bundled payment models. He was previously senior vice president with the Massachusetts Hospital Association and 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. He earned an MBA in finance from The Wharton School.
Simon Moody is a principal and consulting actuary in the Chicago-Milwaukee health practice at Milliman. He joined Milliman in 2009, after working for various employers in the global healthcare, insurance, and reinsurance industry. He has more than 20 years of experience working with health provider organizations, health plans, and a variety of other organizations. He has significant experience working with providers and payers in the design, evaluation, audit, and performance monitoring of various population-based reimbursement agreements. He also works with a number of health systems and ACOs to design and implement internal models for distributing payments from population-based payment contracts across provider networks. Mr. Moody is also the certifying actuary of Medicare Advantage bid filings for several health plans, and he develops feasibility analyses and provides associated services for organizations looking to start up a Medicare Advantage health plan or enter into joint ventures with established MA organizations.
Kristen Mucitelli-Heath’s responsibilities at St. Joseph’s Health include overseeing system population health management strategy, design and participation in value-based payment models through its regional ACO/CIN, Medicaid value-based payment and innovation, and facilitation of regional system development and affiliations including facilitating the startup of a multi-region Upstate New York Super-CIN. She also leads government relations strategy and advocacy in New York state for St. Joseph’s Health and St. Peter’s Health. Before her ten years at St. Joseph’s, Ms. Mucitelli-Heath led a policy caucus in the New York State Senate, served as chief of staff to two commissioners at Empire State Development Corporation and served two New York state governors in various roles. She also served as an executive on loan to start up and develop the regional Performing Provider System under the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program. She currently serves on the boards of the St. Joseph’s clinically-integrated network, Rome Memorial Hospital, PACE of Central New York, the Concordia Healthcare Network Super CIN and the Plaza Corporation (SNF).
Raj Naik, MD, is board certified internist and geriatrician practicing in Florida. He started taking full risk contract with various payers since 1987. He founded Payer Agnostic Medicare Advantage full risk platform. His successful experience with the Medicare Advantage plan led him to start an ACO in 2020 with other market leaders. Because of his success with ACOs, he applied for DCE. Best Value Healthcare was awarded a DCE contract effective April 2021. Dr. Naik believes access to care and technology enabled analytic platforms are key to success for Medicare Advantage full risk ACOs and DCEs.
Carrie Nelson, MD, after serving as the chief clinical officer for Advocate Physician Partners for a number of years, was promoted to the position of system vice president and CMO for population health and health outcomes at Advocate Aurora Health. With accountability to the chief medical officer and the senior vice president of population health and managed care, her systemwide responsibilities include patient safety, health outcomes and risk management—in addition to population health across Advocate Aurora Health’s 400-mile footprint. For population health, she focuses on the clinical programs to drive results in value-based care. She started working in the late 90s as the medical director for quality at Central DuPage Hospital and Central DuPage Physician Group. As the Rush-Copley Medical Center patient safety officer and assistant vice president, she was instrumental in setting up its patient safety program. Dr. Nelson graduated from Rush Medical College and received her master’s in administrative medicine and population health from the University of Wisconsin. She practiced family medicine for over 28 years.
Maria Nikol is a senior business consultant with over 12 years of experience in healthcare operations and strategy. She is passionate about the application of emerging policies within the value-based care space. Within her multifaceted position at Salient, she has taken a lead in developing business partnerships. She holds a master of jurisprudence in health law from Widener University and a bachelor of science in pharmaceutical marketing and management from the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. Her hope is to empower clinical teams with proper tools and knowledge to efficiently take better care of patients in this ever-evolving industry.
Stephen Nuckolls currently serves as the chief executive officer of Coastal Carolina Health Care and their ACO, Coastal Carolina Quality Care, Inc. His responsibilities include the direct management of the 50 provider multi-specialty physician-owned medical practice. Additionally, he is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of the medical practice’s advanced payment model ACO that was selected by CMS in the initial round in April 2012. 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 board member of NAACOS and currently serves as chair.
Andrea Osborne serves as the senior vice president for ACO operations for VillageMD. She has successfully managed multiple CMMI programs including a Next Generation ACO, a MSSP ACO, and is now launching six direct contracting entities. Andrea is passionate about the transitions that new models can bring for the provider and patient to improve care delivery and outcomes. In her time with VillageMD she has provide leadership for a Next Gen ACO that achieved $23M in its first year. Andrea is a licensed nursing home administrator and her previous experience operating skilled nursing facilities has assisted her in developing multiple national post-acute networks that support ACO population health and care coordination.
Heather O’Toole, MD, is the chief medical officer at Innovation Care Partners (ICP), a clinically integrated network affiliated with HonorHealth. As a family physician with over 18 years of experience, she continues to see patients while working with ICP to transform healthcare delivery. Dr. O’Toole completed her family medicine residency through the University of Missouri – Kansas City and then moved to Arizona to practice as a United States Air Force physician, achieving the rank of Major. She became CMO of ICP in 2019, using a data-driven approach augmented by her master of public health and nearly completed master of science in health informatics degrees to improve patient outcomes.
Meghan O’Toole is the senior health and domestic policy advisor for Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI). She leads Senator Schatz’s work as the co-chair of the Senate telehealth working group and sponsor of the CONNECT for Health Act. Prior to joining Senator Schatz’s staff, she worked on Medicare policy and legislation at the Office of Legislation at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, on the health policy team at the Center for American Progress, and at Mathematica Policy Research. She has an undergraduate degree in public policy from Duke University and a master’s degree from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.
Ashish Parikh, MD, is the chief quality officer at Summit Health, where he is responsible for helping providers implement value-based care strategies in clinical practice through reduction in practice variation, evidence-based clinical care delivery, and provider engagement. Dr. Parikh oversees the Universal Provider Incentive Program helping drive providers to achieve optimal patient outcomes and success in value-based contracts. Dr. Parikh went to the University of Miami as part of the honors program in medical education. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and continues to practice primary care internal medicine at Summit Medical Group.
Rich Parker, MD, serves as chief medical officer for Arcadia with responsibility for the design and implementation of clinical strategies, input into the Arcadia’s technology and service programs, and thought leadership in support of providers transitioning to value-based care. For the previous 30 years, he was an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, serving 14 years as medical director and CMO for the 2,200-doctor Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization and overseeing the physician network’s evolution from a fee-for-service system to a nationally recognized pioneer ACO. Dr. Parker graduated from Harvard College, and the Dartmouth-Brown Program in Medicine.
Dr. Robert Pearl is the former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group (1999-2017), the nation’s largest medical group, and former president of The Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group (2009-2017). In these roles he led over 10,000 physicians, 38,000 staff and was responsible for the nationally recognized medical care of 5 million Kaiser Permanente members on the west and east coasts.
Named one of Modern Healthcare’s 50 most influential physician leaders, Pearl is an advocate for the power of integrated, prepaid, technologically advanced and physician-led healthcare delivery.
He serves as a clinical professor of plastic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and is on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses on strategy and leadership, and lectures on information technology and health care policy.
He is the author of Mistreated: Why We think We’re Getting Good Healthcare—And Why We’re Usually Wrong, a Washington Post bestseller that offers a roadmap for transforming American healthcare. All proceeds from the book go to Doctors Without Borders. His most recent book, Uncaring: How the Culture of Medicine Kills Doctors and Patients was published May 2021.
Dr. Pearl hosts the popular podcasts Fixing Healthcare and Coronavirus: The Truth. He publishes a newsletter with over 12,000 subscribers called Monthly Musings on American Healthcare and is a regular contributor to Forbes. He has been featured on CBS This Morning, CNBC, NPR, and in TIME, USA Today and Bloomberg News. He has published more than 100 articles in medical journals and contributed to numerous books. A frequent keynote speaker at healthcare and medical technology conferences. Pearl has addressed the Commonwealth Club, the World Healthcare Congress, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s National Quality Forum and the National Committee for Quality Improvement (NCQA).
Board certified in plastic and reconstructive surgery, Pearl received his medical degree from the Yale University School of Medicine, followed by a residency in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Stanford University.
From 2012 to 2017, Pearl served as chairman of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP), which includes the nation’s largest and best multispecialty medical groups, and participated in the Bipartisan Congressional Task Force on Delivery System Reform and Health IT in Washington, D.C.
Connect with Dr. Robert Pearl on Twitter @RobertPearlMD, LinkedIn and at his website robertpearlmd.com.
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. 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.
John Pilotte, M.H.P.M., is the director of the Performance-based Payment Policy Group (P3) within the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He manages policy development and operations teams for the Medicare Shared Savings Program, Medicare’s national Accountable Care Organization program with over 500 ACOs accountable for over 10.9 million Medicare beneficiaries. He also managed the development and implementation of Medicare’s Physician Value Modifier, the predecessor to the current Merit-based Incentive Program, as well as resource use measures for physicians, hospitals, and post-acute settings. Prior to joining P3, Mr. Pilotte served as the Director of the Division of Payment Policy Demonstrations in the predecessor of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation where he managed the development and implementation of the Physician Group Practice Demonstrations and care coordination demonstrations. Prior to joining CMS, he was a senior healthcare consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and part of the government relations team at the National Association of Children’s Hospitals. Mr. Pilotte has a master’s in health policy and management from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor of science from Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
David Pittman is senior policy advisor at the National Association of ACOs, where he works on various regulatory policy and legislative topics involving ACOs and CMS Innovation Center models. He also works on communications matters for NAACOS. He joined NAACOS in August 2018 as health policy and communications advisor. Before that, he worked as a healthcare journalist for nearly a dozen years, including at POLITICO where 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. David holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and chemistry from the University of Georgia, where he graduated in 2006.
Arshad Rahim, MD, is the vice president of clinical integration and network development at Mount Sinai Health System. As the vice president of clinical integration and network development, he leads a team that drives clinical integration and performance excellence in value-based care performance at primary care, multispecialty and select specialty practices. He is focused on clinical integration across programs that reduce avoidable acute care utilization, quality performance, accurate risk adjustment, and physician satisfaction. Dr. Rahim co-leads ambulatory condition management efforts in high-cost chronic diseases including heart failure, diabetes, COPD and HTN. He also leads and closely collaborates with system stakeholders for CIN recruitment, network curation, and key account development activities. Dr. Rahim has over 14 years of healthcare industry leadership experience at innovative companies including as vice president of quality improvement for Lumeris, a population health and analytics company; a group vice president of quality improvement and innovation at Healthgrades; and a director at Sg2, a health care intelligence, analytics, and services company for many hospitals and health systems throughout the country. Dr. Rahim has a B.A. in economics from Duke University, an M.D. from the University of North Carolina, and an M.B.A. from Emory University. He completed his internal medicine residency at Yale University and Northwestern University and is an actively hospitalist at the Mount Sinai Hospital.
Megan Reyna is vice president of government and value-based programs for Advocate Aurora Health. Under her leadership, her team leads clinical population health and value transformation projects to assist the organization in achieving national quality and financial targets. She oversees operations for three Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs. Her responsibilities also include bundle payment program operations, for both BPCI-A and CJR, and MACRA support and sustainment. Ms. Reyna currently serves as chair of the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) Quality Committee. A registered nurse by background, she received her MSN from University of Illinois Chicago.
Patt Richesin is the president at Kootenai Care Network (KCN), a clinically integrated network including Kootenai Health, seven critical access hospitals, and 730 physicians and advance practice professionals across north Idaho. She also serves as president of the Medicare Shared Savings ACO, Kootenai Accountable Care and the Idaho Medicaid Value Care Organization, Kootenai Value Care. She was appointed to the Idaho Health Quality Planning Commission, serves on the Healthcare Transformation Council of Idaho, and the Idaho Health Data Exchange, most recently as board chair. She enjoys a career rich in direct patient care delivery, public and population health, rural and frontier medicine, and comprehensive management of the total cost of care. She has a masters prepared in business administration and healthcare administration and is a fellow in the American College of Medical Practice Executives.
Kristin Rosemond, in her role as executive director leads all aspects of Dignity Health Care Network, a California statewide Medicare accountable care organization. She also services as executive director of the Southern California Integrated Care Network. A versatile healthcare professional and energetic leader, she has diverse experience in population health including value-based care program models, care management, and quality management. Areas of expertise include strategy development and implementation in accountable care organizations, clinical integrated networks, and partnering with independent physician associations. Prior to joining Dignity Health, she was director of client support for Abrazo Health. Mr. Rosemond has over 25 years of health care experience with leadership roles in physician practice administration, network development, provider relations, EHR implementations and quality management. She has a passion for supporting primary care physicians and the patients they serve as she began her healthcare career managing a family medicine residency program.
Pamela Saenger, MD, is the lead provider for Mount Sinai Hospitalization at Home and assistant professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She has been an attending physician in the Hospitalization at Home (HaH) program at Mount Sinai since 2017. She graduated from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and completed her residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her work within the HaH program has focused on quality improvement, protocol development, and the launch of HaH pilots for post-surgical and oncology patients. Clinical and research interests include identifying barriers to HaH care and exploring further adaptations of the HaH model.
Bob Sarkar is president and CEO of the Arkansas Health Network (AHN). His focus has been to ensure that AHN succeeds in improving the quality of care at a lower cost, while improving the patient and provider experience across its network. In the last 6 years in this role, he has helped transform AHN to be the largest and most successful CIN in Arkansas, and a national ‘Best Practice’ in value-based care. He spear-headed AHN to be one of the top quartiles of MSSP-ACOs in the industry that has successfully and repeatedly saved and received multi-million-dollar shared savings from CMS. Most recently, under his leadership, AHN successfully managed the 2020 CHI St. Vincent employee health plan population resulting in the highest quality score achieved among all CommonSpirit CINs and maximum pay-for-performance earnings. Previously, Mr. Sarkar was responsible for population health management and innovative health plan development as the SVP of operations and value-based care for Premier Health and as the RVP and chief strategy officer for Presence Health. In addition, he has provided hands-on advisory and program implementation services to some of the leading healthcare organizations across the country, including Kaiser Permanente, Advocate, Johns Hopkins and Aetna. Most recently, he served as the National Leader of Healthcare and Practice Vice President for Capgemini. He earned his master of business administration degree at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and earned a bachelor of science degree in biotechnology at the University of Kentucky. He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Erin Smith, JD, VP of Business Development at Aledade where she focuses on ACO contracting and relationship development with private payers. Prior to Aledade, Erin was a Staff VP of Payment Innovation at Anthem, leading the specialty team on development and implementation of payment models. Erin was the Director of Public Policy at Cardinal Health where she serves as the lead policy expert for public payment policy and value-based care models for the Federal Government Relations group. She also led the policy arm for naviHealth, a Cardinal Health company at the time, in which she focused on value-based payments, care transitions, and post-acute care. Prior to Cardinal Health, Erin worked at CMS in the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, leading the team that developed bundled payment models and implemented the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. Erin served as a Medicare physician payment policy expert on the Physician Fee Schedule at CMS. She also brings experience from her time with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and Avalere Health.
Kraig Smith is the chief growth officer with Nevada Care Connect, a high needs DCE and provider owned medical practice specializing in house calls. He has over 20 years’ experience starting, expanding, directing and consulting with managed care plans including MA, DSNP, SNP, ISNP, Medicaid MCO’s, Commercial HMO’s and Hospice. He developed strategies to improve member satisfaction and improved HEDIS measures for availability, prevention, screening and effectiveness of care. Mr. Smith created and implemented an award-winning healthcare “gap closer program” that improved the health outcomes of more than 50,000 Medicare and Medicaid Health Plan members in Tennessee. He has a bachelor’s degree in health planning and administration and a master’s in business administration.
Michael Stanzione currently serves as the director of Medicare Advantage network performance at Aledade, Inc. He partners with internal and external stakeholders to drive performance in Medicare Advantage value-based contracts across the US and supports independent primary care practices and physicians in maintaining their independence and making the transition to value-based models of care. Prior to his current role, he has held numerous positions throughout the healthcare community including health plan strategy and management, healthcare consulting, physician group management, and Health IT. He holds an MBA from Rutgers University and a BS in public health and health policy and administration from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Rosa Vicente-Soito is the executive director over three clinically integrated networks in rural Northern and Central California. She has been in the healthcare field for more than 30 years. She is a registered nurse with most of her bedside nursing experience in the field of cardiology. She decided to leave the hospital setting to join a large cardiovascular practice as a nurse liaison and it was there she realized the importance of connecting with, educating, and engaging patients in the ambulatory space. This path led her to many years of running outpatient cardiovascular practices and starting up vein practices in Northern California. In 2016, she joined Dignity Health in a dual role; to launch a newly formed clinically integrated network and to run the north state’s hospital’s cardiovascular service line. That network; NSQCN, went on to achieve shared savings in 2 of 3 years in MSSP participation. As the cardiology service line director, she was able to rebuild the program, adding 4 new cardiologists to the service line, partnering with Stanford for cardiac surgery, and bringing electrophysiology services to the Redding community. She received her bachelor of science in nursing from Chamberlain University School of Nursing, and her masters in healthcare administration from University of Arizona.
Anna Taylor is the director of operations for MultiCare Connected Care, MultiCare’s population health engine. She is a nationally recognized FHIR Champion by the Da Vinci accelerator and she and her team received the 2020 MultiCare’s President’s award for Excellence in Innovation and Adaptation for their work on implementing the Implementation Guide for Quality Measures: Medication Reconciliation. She has 13+ years in healthcare and has held positions in organization development, information services and technology, and strategy. She holds a B.S. from the UW School of Engineering in technical communication and a M.S. in clinical informatics and patient centered technology from the UW School of Nursing.
Michael Van Scoy, MD, serves as medical director for Essentia Health care management. In addition to being a Track III MSSP participant, Essentia Health has value-based contracts for Medicare Advantage, dual-eligible, commercial, and Medicaid populations. Areas of interest include clinical models of care, telehealth, documentation/coding, pharmacy care management, decision support, and quality.
Debbie Welle-Powell is the chief population health officer at Essentia Health. In this role, she is responsible for integrating population health management with community health and well-being services to address the social determinants of health. She works with market leaders, payer partners and community stakeholders to develop community-based, population health and risk sharing models that focus on wellness and disease prevention for better health outcomes. Prior to her new appointment, she served as the senior vice-president of accountable care. Essentia Health is a 17 hospital, 1500 provider health system spanning the states of Minnesota, North Dakota, Idaho and Wisconsin. Essentia is certified as an ACO Level III by NCQA. As the SVP of accountable care, she led the accountable care division with strategic and operational responsibilities for population care management, system quality, payer strategy and community health with strategic activities to help position Essentia Health as the preferred provider of care. Prior to Essentia, Ms. Welle-Powell was the vice president of accountable care and payer strategy for SCL Health System, a $3B health care system. As a seasoned executive, she led the strategic and market activities for accountable health readiness while developing innovative products, services, and technologies. Additional focus was on developing a vision, strategy and key tactics to support e-health business. She 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 a full range of payment models.
Daniel Wendorff, MD, has been the clinical leader of Mount Carmel Health Partners since 2009 and president since 2012. He has built and maintained value for the physician stakeholders and Mount Carmel Health System via a clinically integrated network model. He is board certified in internal medicine and is a fellow of the Physician Leadership Academy of Ohio and a member of the American Association for Physician Leadership. Prior to joining Health Partners, Dr. Wendorff practiced general internal medicine at Grove City Internal Medicine. He serves as a member of the board of directors of MediGold and has recently been named the interim board chairman. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cleveland State University and earned his medical degree from The Ohio State University.
Tracey Wilkie is UMass Memorial Health’s senior director of population health analytics. She has been working with UMass Memorial Health for 13 years. Her work focuses on developing actionable tools and meaningful performance analyses for the UMMACO MSSP ACO and the system’s managed care network. These two programs encompass over 46,000 Medicare beneficiaries, 75,000 commercially assigned members, 7 hospitals, 3 FQHCs, and 2,000 physicians. Finding new ways to leverage EMR data and paid claims has been an ongoing interest. In addition, she supports the evaluation of community programs, health equity, COVID vaccine outreach, and Anchor Mission initiatives. She received her master’s degree in economics from Penn State University.
Phyllis Wojtusik is executive vice president of health system solutions at Real Time Medical Systems. With over thirty-five years of health care experience, she draws on her experience as a registered nurse in acute care, ambulatory care, and post-acute care to bring vital input and client-side perspective into the development of Real Time’s interventional analytics solutions. A true expert in the field of long-term care, she is also an integral part of Real Time’s coordinated care effort, working to bring skilled nursing facilities and hospitals/health systems together for the benefit of the patient. Prior to joining Real Time Medical Systems, Ms. Wojtusik led the development of a preferred provider SNF network for PENN Medicine Lancaster General Health. In this network she developed and implemented strategies that reduced total cost of care and readmissions while improving quality measures and patient outcomes. She utilized system approaches, clinical standards, and care management tactics to improve coordination and transition of care while reducing post-acute length of stay in a network of non-owned SNFs. She graduated from Lancaster General School of Nursing and Franklin and Marshal College with degrees in nursing and science.
Matt Zavadsky is the chief transformation officer for MedStar Mobile Healthcare. He has helped guide the implementation and financial sustainability of numerous innovative programs with healthcare partners that have transformed MedStar fully as a mobile integrated healthcare provider. Most recently, he has led the negotiations with multiple third-party payers to change the basic economic model for EMS to better align patient, provider and payer focus on patient centered care as opposed to simply payment for ambulance transport. He has helped the development and implementation of the CMS/CMMI model, with the Treatment in Place (TIP) intervention using a telehealth provider. He is also the immediate past president of the National Association of EMTs and chairs their EMS Economics Committee. He has recently worked with CMS/CMMI to help facilitate recent new payment models such as Emergency Triage, Treat and Transport (ET3) model and Medicare waivers for Treatment in Place during the pandemic. He has a master’s degree in healthcare administration, with a graduate certificate in healthcare data management.