Keynote Speakers

CareForum 2018 featured four nationally recognized keynote speakers sharing their expertise and thought leadership to help your organization succeed and thrive.
 

Marilyn Tavenner
Former President and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)
and Former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)


Looking Forward to Future Changes in Health and Human Services and Anticipating What’s Next for the Industry
A discussion with Marilyn Tavenner, hosted by Mediware CEO Bill Miller, featuring audience Q&A.

Agencies throughout the U.S. Department Health & Human Services continue to signal their increasing emphasis on delivering quality care. Most notably, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are focusing on new value-based payment models. The trajectory of the health and human services industry affects the vital care you provide, and you need perspective to ensure your agency’s success for years to come. Marilyn Tavenner — former President and CEO of AHIP and Administrator of CMS — will give you that perspective at CareForum 2018. Join Marilyn for a forward-looking armchair discussion with audience Q&A, hosted by Mediware CEO Bill Miller. Marilyn will share her thoughts on what’s next for Medicare and Medicaid; how the 2018 political landscape in Washington will shape the industry; and how we can better connect community services and health care to help more people in need.
 

David Rendall
Keynote Speaker & Executive Coach

Oppositioning: One Surprising Strategy for Innovation and Differentiation
What can tiny houses, Spartan races, knuckleball pitchers, armless archers, Snapchat, unibrows, and Minecraft teach us about innovation and differentiation? We all know that innovation and differentiation are essential, but developing and implementing truly unique ideas seems very difficult, and most fail to become more creative and distinctive. The solution is surprisingly simple. A singular method for finding unconventional ideas that will dramatically improve your ability to stand out and produce an endless supply of original breakthroughs. You’ll go from unconventional to unforgettable to unstoppable. 
 

Ann Oliva

Senior Policy Advisor for Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH)
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
 

Data with Purpose: Connecting Health and Social Issues to Help Communities Thrive
Health and social issues are deeply interconnected. Human services professionals know that a person’s presenting condition — whether it’s homelessness, addiction, or a health issue — is rarely a singular need with a singular solution. To find solutions that help individuals thrive, we need system-level thinking and planning, as well as innovation at every level of service. This kind of collaboration at scale requires intelligent, actionable data gathered from multiple sources. In this session, we will explore creative, multidisciplinary approaches to problem solving that can improve care across virtually any service setting.

 

Jake Poore
President and Chief Experience Officer of Integrated Loyalty Systems


Creating Patient Loyalty by Providing Exceptional Patient Experiences
Patients today say they want to be treated as individuals and not just identified by their acuity or clinical ID number. They tell us that exceptional experiences occur when we consistently meet their expectations on what we provide (the clinical care side) while exceeding their expectations on how we provide it (the service side). In the highly competitive health care marketplace, patient experience is a top driver of patient loyalty and marketshare.
 

 

Andrea Stark
Andrea Stark
Reimbursement Consultant, Member
MiraVista, LLC
Andrea Stark is a Medicare consultant and reimbursement specialist for medical equipment suppliers and pharmacies. She has over 20 years of experience in the DME industry, including 15 years as an independent consultant. Stark founded MiraVista, LLC after working for the Region C DMERC, and now provides consulting, education and data analysis services to suppliers throughout the country. Stark is the former Chair of the Jurisdiction C Council and collaborates with numerous state and national associations. For more information, visit: http://www.miravistallc.com

Andrew Grigorov
Andrew Grigorov
SIMS Senior Business Analyst
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Andy Grigorov has worked in the aging field for over 20 years, with 15 years’ experience at the local aging agency level. Since coming to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2012, he has managed several key projects related to the SAMS suite of applications, including the SAMS 3 roll out, SAMS claims for Senior Care Organizations (SCOs), and a number of APS upgrade implementations. Andy enjoys outreach to the local agencies across the state, and lives in the small Central Massachusetts town of Barre. His son currently attends Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY.

Andy Staggs
Andy Staggs
Sr. Solutions Consultant
WellSky
Andy Staggs has been with WellSky for almost 10 years, starting in Tech Support before moving to the Training department for 2 years conducting webinars and new user in-house trainings. He was also with the Product Development team for 3 years, and helped with compliance related topics like the transition from ICD-9 to ICD-10. He is now a Solutions Engineer working with the Sales team. Before working at WellSky he graduated from Texas A&M University, and his first job out of college was at WellSky Home Health Agency in San Antonio, TX.

Ann Howard
Ann Howard
Executive Director
Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO)
Ann Howard is the first Executive Director of the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO) in Austin, Travis County; she has held the position since October of 2011 and now employs 28 people leading Austin’s effort to end homelessness. After 1 year of Ann's leadership, the Texas Homeless Network named ECHO the Outstanding Coalition in the State. Ann is an alumnus of the University of Texas, with a JD from the School of Law, and an MPA from the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Her first job was legal counsel to the US Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Joseph Biden and she enjoyed representing teenagers in the juvenile court from time to time

Ann Oliva
Ann Oliva
Visiting Senior Fellow
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Ann Oliva a visiting senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Formally, she was Senior Policy Advisor to the CEO at CSH focused on increasing local capacity to develop a system-level response to homelessness. Prior to joining CSH, Ms. Oliva was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she oversaw a multi-billion dollar portfolio that included the Department’s work on homelessness and housing for persons living with HIV/AIDS. During her 10-year tenure at HUD, Ms. Oliva successfully designed and implemented a variety of initiatives and programs, including a $1.5 Billion homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing program funded through the Recovery Act, and a demonstration to end youth homelessness in 10 communities. Ms. Oliva has also worked at the community level, including as Director of Programs at the Community Partnership in Washington, DC.

Anne Marie
Anne Marie
Associate Executive Director
AARC, Advocacy and Government Affairs
Anne Marie Hummel is a health care expert with 31 years of experience in a variety of Federal Government positions, including twenty years of experience in the Medicare program managing day-to-day regulatory activities, directing the national Medicare coverage process, implementing policies impacting Medicare Part B services and practitioners, and providing outreach and educational materials to over 40 million beneficiaries. Since 2008, she has served as the Executive Director of AARC. She reviews and analyzes federal and state legislative and regulatory initiatives impacted respiratory therapists and their patients. She also helps develop policy specifications for AARC's legislative initiatives. She represents AARC on the American Medical Association's Advisory Committee.

Annie Erstling
Annie Erstling
Chief Strategy Officer
Forcura
As Chief Strategy Officer, Annie Erstling works closely with Forcura's enterprise-level clients, determining best practices for using data analytics to make smart business decisions. She guides Forcura's product roadmap to enhance the platform's current capabilities and develop new innovative products based on client feedback and market research. Recently, she has been preparing Forcura to transition the post-acute industry from documents to data - by launching electronic signature, digital forms management, analytics and a centralized intake hub that allows post-acute providers to manage all referrals from any source in any format in one common place.

Audrey Fardan
Audrey Fardan
Consultant - Trainer
Mediware
Audrey Fardan was previously an Implementation Manager at Fastrack Healthcare Systems starting in 2004 and became an Implementation Consultant, Sr. with Mediware in 2014. Prior to joining Fastrack, Audrey was a Reimbursement Manager with Visiting Nurse Service of New York and AccuHealth Home Care. As a reimbursement manager, Audrey found her strengths to include teaching and development of her staff. Now, working as an implementation consultant with both CareTend and Fastrack customers, Audrey is able to apply those skills for successful implementation outcomes.

Barbara Sarrett
Barbara Sarrett
Mediware
Barbara Sarrett started her career in the Medical Field as a Registered Medical Assistant and Ortho Tech working for Orthopedic Surgeons 34 years ago. In 1991 she began working for an HME company who provided Post-Acute Care. After several years she began working on the technical side of things as she transitioned into the Medical Software Industry. She has worn multiple hats in this industry from some Crystal report writing; Trade show Coordinator; Sales; Software Installation and configuration and Training. She has been with Mediware since 2008 and Her passion remains in the Implementation/ Teaching aspect and building Client relationships.

Bill Noyes
Mr. Bill Noyes
SVP Reimbursement Policy
NHIA
Bill Noyes is the senior vice president of reimbursement policy at the National Home Infusion Association, a trade association that represents and advances the interests of organizations that provide infusion and specialty pharmacy products and services to the entire spectrum of home-based patients. Noyes focuses on reimbursement and regulatory issues that affect providers’ ability to do business and collect payment for their services. Noyes serves as the NHIA staff liaison to the Medicare Contractor Advisory Committee, which advocates for NHIA members on Part B contractor issues, and the Payer Advocacy and Relations Committee, which advocates on reimbursement and coverage issues with private and government payers. Noyes also works closely with NHIA’s government affairs team on regulatory and legislative initiatives. Prior to joining NHIA in 2012, Noyes spent 20 years working for regional home infusion provider with a focus on finance and operations.

Brandon Seigel
Brandon Seigel
President
Wellness Works Management Partners
Brandon Seigel is a published author, international speaker, and private practice entrepreneur who brings over 15 years of experience in executive management and helping support strategic growth to private practices while empowering a workforce to achieve optimum clinical outcomes. Since the release of his most recent book in February 2019, Brandon has been recognized by CBS, CNBC, MoneyWatch, CEO World, and more for his ability to transform private practices in an ever-changing health care system. Seigel manages and consults to private practices throughout the United States on optimizing efficiency, unlocking profitability in an ever-changing health care system, workforce empowerment, and more. Seigel is passionate about empowering the next generation of health care professionals to overcome the obstacles impacting our current health care environment.

Brendan Carroll
Brendan Carroll
Senior Business Systems Analyst
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Brendan Carroll has more than 12 years of experience with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, serving in various IT roles for both the Health & Human Services and MassIT organizations. Currently, Brendan serves as the Senior Business Systems Analyst for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services in Boston, MA. Early in his career with the Commonwealth, Brendan played a crucial role in the statewide implementations of both the SAMS and Harmony for APS products. While he still continues to work with the SAMS suite of products, Brendan now focuses most of this time working with the Adult Protective Services Program and Agency Management to continuously improve the Harmony for APS application to meet the changing programmatic requirements. In his spare time, he enjoys family time with his wife and two sons.

Brian Eidex
Brian Eidex
Director of Strategic Solutions
LexisNexis Health Care
Brian Eidex is an accomplished leader with 20 years of experience in product management, sales and software development. With decades of experience at organizations such as Arthur Andersen and McKesson, Brian has deep pharmacy industry knowledge, software and technology expertise. At LexisNexis Mr. Eidex helps retail pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager organizations address compliance, patient engagement, fraud risk and data management needs through data intelligence and analytics solutions. Brian holds a BBA and MS from Georgia State University.

Brian Fuller
Brian Fuller
Business Analyst
WellSky
Brian has over thirty years of financial and accounting experience, being involved with healthcare since 2009, and became a member of WellSky in November 2013. He came in as a Financial Product Specialist, working on the Billing Manager 2 product, focusing on the Billing, Financial Reports and the General Ledger upload. He has recently moved to the Product Development area, focusing on the overall WellSky process of streamlining claim creations and consolidating financial reports.

Brian Bertram
Brian Bertram
Executive Vice President and co-founder
Infinity Hospice Care (IHC)
Brian Bertram has been the Executive Vice President and co-founder of Infinity Hospice Care (IHC) since 2007. IHC operates agencies in Arizona and Nevada -serving more counties than any other hospice provider in Nevada. Brian serves on the Board of Directors for the Hospice Action Network of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO).
In his leadership role, Brian coaches, mentors, and inspires others to promote IHC’s core values and company culture. Brian has implemented strategies that have successfully led IHC to become the recognized market leader in Nevada. He is a frequent panelist, advocate, and presenter, and is considered to be a thought leader in end-of-life care.
In 2010, Brian co-founded Nevada Palliative Care (NEVPC) and Palliative Care of Arizona (PCAZ), nonprofit organizations dedicated to delivering high-quality palliative care, education, and leadership.
In 2016, Brian co-founded Nevada Care Connect, a management services organization (MSO) working with physician specialty groups, accountable care organizations, insurers, and managed care.
Brian, a husband and father of three children, values time spent with his family. He also enjoys hiking, swimming, grilling, and tailgating in his free time. Brian is excited by new ideas and consistently works to improve the employee and patient experience.

Brittany Coronado
Brittany Coronado
ServicePoint Coordinator
Flagler Hospital, Inc
John Eaton is the Administrator of Community Health Improvement at Flagler Hospital in St. Augustine, Florida. Under John’s leadership, the community health improvement team is focused on educating and activating members of the community and their families to take ownership of their health and improve quality of life. Key to this effort is St. Johns Care Connect, a new community alliance established to connect area residents in need with available services and address social determinants of health in a coordinated way throughout all of St. Johns County.
As Administrator of Communtiy Health Improvement, John is responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of a community-wide health improvement plan, identifying gaps in access to care, developing programs to meet those needs, and deploying health education and engagement strategies.
John holds a bachelor’s degree in Health Education and Behavior from the University of Florida. He serves as the Co-Chair of the St. Johns County Health Leadership Council and on several Boards of Directors including, St. Johns County Continuum of Care, Community Partnership School Executive Board, Good Samaritan Health Centers and the St. Augustine Family YMCA.

Bruce Gehring
Bruce Gehring
Director of Marketing
Allegiance Group
Sharon Bock joined Allegiance Group as the director of marketing in 2016. In her current role, she develops and executes marketing strategy, brand management, social media and communication plans for clients and prospects. Prior to joining Allegiance Group, Sharon managed collection and customer service teams for the BP credit card center (formerly Amoco Oil) for 5 years and the marketing / public relations strategy for three of the largest regional banks in the Midwest for 15 years. Sharon earned her masters and undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Drake University.

Candice Hacker
Candice Hacker
Industry Compliance Officer/Reporting Product Manager
Mediware
Candice Wiseman came to Bowman Systems in 2012 after nearly 5 years of working with a metro Continuum of Care as HMIS Coordinator. In that role she assisted with various tasks ranging from training new users in HMIS data entry/reporting, chairing the Project Review Workgroup, leading sheltered PIT/HIC process to completing the HMIS/Performance sections of the CoC’s annual application to HUD.

Candice, in her role at Mediware Information Systems as Industry Compliance Officer/Reporting Product Manager, focuses on ensuring Industry Compliance, coordinating product management for Qlik Sense, representing Mediware at HUD Software Solutions Provider meetings, attending HUD and Federal Partner National Conferences, preparing federal, state and local report specifications and answering technical assistance questions. Candice is also the Project Lead for the RhyPoint, the National RHYHMIS Repository. Her hands-on expertise in the field ensures that Mediware’s reports to HUD, the VA, and HHS are not only accurate, but are also easy for users/system administrators to access, run and submit.

Candice has a BA in Psychology from the University of California, Irvine and a BS in Public Administration from the University of Arizona. She received her Master of Public Administration, with an emphasis in Criminal Justice Administration, from the University of Arizona in 2006. She works from her home office in Kenosha, WI.

Celeste Murphy
Celeste Murphy
Director of Respiratory, Pulmonary and Sleep
Jamaica Hospital Medical Center
Director of Respiratory, Pulmonary and Sleep, RRT, CPFT, NPS, AE-C

Cheryl Holt
Cheryl Holt
Managing Consultant Healthcare
Navigant
Cheryl Holt is a Managing Consultant at Navigant Consulting, Inc., with more than 25 years of experience in the behavioral health industry, serving in leadership and direct service roles. Cheryl has served at the national, state, and local levels, addressing a systems approach to promoting behavioral health and primary care integration through the implementation of Medicaid Health Homes, providing training and technical assistance on integrated care to SAMHSA grantees, in statewide initiatives, via health insurers and managed care, and consulting with healthcare organizations.