2023 Speakers

Decision Point Healthcare Solutions

Saeed Aminzadeh

Chief Executive Officer
SelectHealth

Kim Barrus, MSN, BSCIS, RN, PMP

Director, Clinical Outcomes Management
Healthmine

Ann Berridge

Senior Advisor
UPMC Health Plan

Andre Bliss, Ph.D., MBA

Director, Medicare STARs
MVP Healthcare

Simone Brooks

Innovation Strategist
Wellth

Samantha Cordero

Chief Customer Officer
Benelynk

Keslie Crichton

Chief Sales Officer
Telephone Town Hall Meeting

Patrick Davis

Healthcare Sales Director
The Helper Bees

Andy Friedell

COO
Wider Circle

Bill Friedman

Vice President of Payer and Provider Engagement
UCare

Jamie Galbreath, PhD, MPH, CHES

Quality Improvement Director
WellSky

Mark Gee

Senior Vice President, Payer and Emerging Markets
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island

Brendan Generelli

Senior Program Manager for Stars and Quality
LetsGetChecked

Addison Giannini

Senior Vice President, Payor Solutions
Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan

Renee Golderman

Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer
mPulse

Greg Gould

Senior Solutions Engineer
Centene

Jill Hanson

Vice President, Regional Pharmacy for the West
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana

Jack Holloway

Manager Data Science
Cigna

Jenna Horner

Director, Medicare Advantage Product Strategy
Point32Health

Priyanka Jain

Vice President, Medicare Quality and Member Experience
DUOS

Jenn Kerfoot

Chief Strategy & Growth Officer
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana

Zachary Kirby

Data Scientist
Mom’s Meals

Catherine Macpherson, MS, RD

Senior Vice President, Healthcare Strategy and Chief Nutrition Officer
Network Health

Mallory Mueller

Director Quality Health Integration
Clearlink Partners

Irma O’Brien

Vice President of Population Health
mPulse

Reva Sheehan

Sr. Director, Customer Insights
Healthmine

Cherie Shortridge

Senior Advisor
Healthmine

Melissa Smith

Chief Consulting Officer
Independent Health

Jessica Thomas, DrPH

Director of Quality
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana

Benjamin Vicidomina

VP Analytics and Quality Improvement
Wellth

Dr. Sarah Watters

Behavioral Scientist
Zing Health

Dan Weaver

SVP Stars and Quality
SelectHealth

Rebecca Welling

Associate Vice President of Risk Adjustment
Healthmine

John Willis

Vice President of Consulting and Professional Services
Speakers Biographies


Saeed Aminzadeh

Chief Executive Officer
Decision Point Healthcare Solutions

Saeed founded Decision Point with the mission of improving health plan clinical, financial and operational performance through informed, data-driven predictions on strategic decisions. He has more than 25 years of health information technology experience, with a track record of developing innovative approaches to solve complex business problems. He has held key senior management positions at Eliza Corporation, Ingenix (currently Optum), IHCIS and ProVentive, where led high- performing teams focused creative uses of technology for practical problem-solving. Saeed is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University with a BA in Economics.

Kim Barrus, MSN, BSCIS, RN, PMP

Director, Clinical Outcomes Management
SelectHealth

Kim is a registered nurse who received her Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems from Columbia College of Missouri, and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Science in Nursing from Western Governors University. She also maintains a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Kim Barrus began her career with SelectHealth 26 years ago and has worked in a variety of capacities in that time. She developed the SelectHealth Advanced Primary Care (a.k.a., patient centered medical home) program and supporting department. Kim facilitated the initial pilots of the program in 2010. Today the program has 1,240 participating providers at 222 participating clinics. Kim is currently the Director of Clinical Outcomes Management and has oversight for quality, medical home, NCQA accreditation, HEDIS and CMS Stars.

Ann Berridge

Senior Advisor
Healthmine

Ana brings more than 20 years of healthcare and health plan experience to Healthmine. She most recently came from WellSense Health Plan, formerly Boston Medical Center HealthNet Plan. She had oversight of work related to Stars, HEDIS®, NCQA, Quality Rating System, External Quality Review Organization, population health programs, new product implementation, value-based care programs, policy advocacy and health equity programs.  

Ana developed multiple innovative member and provider interventions that were integral in the successful improvement of key HEDIS and Consumer Asessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) quality measures and meeting corporate and contractual goals. She has experience with successfully identifying and implementing new to industry initiatives, such as texting, with proven quality and financial improvement. Ana is bilingual in English and Spanish and has used this in community initiatives to help engage members and improve the quality of care for the Medicaid, Medicare, Affordable Care Act, and Commercial populations. 

Ana holds a master’s degree from Simmons University in Health Administration and a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire.

Andre Bliss, Ph.D., MBA

Director, Medicare STARs
UPMC Health Plan

Andre Bliss leads a group that develops and implements quality improvement initiatives aimed at measures involving Medicare STARs. A key role is coordinating with multiple teams on projects to improve and maintain UPMCs high STARs rating. Prior to this role, Andre was the Director of Business Intelligence and a member of the senior leadership team at Jordan Health in Rochester, NY. He has a Ph.D. from Niagara University in Leadership and Policy, an Advanced Certificate from the University of Rochester in Health Services Research and Policy, and an MBA from St. John Fisher University in Health Systems Management.

Simone Brooks

Innovation Strategist
MVP Healthcare

Simone A. Brooks is health care leader with a proven track record of developing and expanding innovative solutions. She has over 15 years’ experience in wealth management, program development, and corporate retail in regional and global organizations across multiple industries. In her current role as Innovation Strategist at MVP Health Care, Simone facilitates consumer studies using qualitative research as well as quantitative survey data. She advances the culture of innovation throughout the organization to uphold customer-centricity.

Simone is passionate about driving health care equity and ensuring all populations receive fair health care, regardless of their ethnicity, income, gender, or otherwise. Prior to joining MVP, Simone was pivotal in driving partnerships between community-based organizations (CBOs), skilled nursing facilities, hospitals, and private practices to improve care for the Medicaid and uninsured populations. Additionally, she developed a certified training program for community health workers in collaboration with local community colleges and developed a value-based payment training program which taught executive leaders of almost two dozen local social care organizations.

Simone holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics, with a minor in Information Technology, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She also holds an Executive Master of Business Administration from University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business. She is a dual member of Toastmasters International, Inc. and is an active member of her church. Simone is married to her high school sweetheart and they have three children.

Samantha Cordero

Chief Customer Officer
Wellth

As Chief Customer Officer, Samantha manages the design and implementation of Wellth programs and works closely with partner organizations to ensure long-term success. Her focus is on optimizing value and outcomes for Wellth's customers and members. Samantha is passionate about solving complex problems and applying innovative solutions to improve patient health. Prior to Wellth, Samantha was responsible for IT strategic planning and deployments at Cedars-Sinai Health System. She also worked for Epic Systems where she led implementations of the electronic health record system. Samantha holds a BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Lewis & Clark College. She lives in Southern California and spends her free time hiking, traveling, and spending time with family.

Keslie Crichton

Chief Sales Officer
Benelynk

Keslie is the Chief Sales Officer for Benelynk. In her role, she is not only responsible for new business development but also works on innovative partnerships to improve outreach strategies and health outcomes for our client’s members. At the core of BeneLynk’s services, Keslie and her team work to identify, document and solve member’s social care challenges by “leading with help”. This personal human to human approach increases BeneLynk’s engagement rates across our integrated services while also providing our clients with crucial information they need to deliver equitable care and improve their quality metrics.

Keslie has worked in managed care for over 25 years with a focus on solutions that improve members’ lives but also provide a return on investment for our clients. Keslie's passion lies in working on strategies that put members at the center while ensuring we deliver accurate risk-adjusted revenue, improve quality performance, and increase member retention.

Keslie holds a B.S. in Business Administration from Regis University and worked towards her MBA and master’s in healthcare administration at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT. She is also a licensed Realtor® and enjoys volunteering at the local shelter and food pantry.

Andy Friedell

COO
The Helper Bees

As COO, Andy helps drive growth and provides strategic direction across The Helper Bees’ products and services, ensuring that the work of the team is properly aligned with the goals of payers, patients and caregivers. He brings over 20 years of healthcare experience to the job. Andy founded healthAlign to help payers better manage a diverse range of services into the home and that business was acquired by The Helper Bees in 2021. Prior to founding healthAlign, he oversaw payer relations, nationwide business development, and large-scale strategic engagements at Maxim, one of the nation’s largest homecare companies. His work driving the product development function there brought about a community-based care management offering that has been shown to reduce readmissions by over 65% while also driving a 35% reduction in in-patient spending.

Andy came to Maxim from Medco Health Solutions where he worked on the development of the Medicare Part D drug benefit, the early launch of the internet pharmacy marketplace and the regulatory environment for mail service pharmacies. Andy began his career as an aide to former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman.

Bill Friedman

Vice President of Payer and Provider Engagement
Wider Circle

Bill has deep expertise in selling and marketing digital health engagement solutions to payers and providers with an intimate knowledge of the health payer landscape. Most recently, Bill led payer sales at Carrot Fertility, a global provider of fertility benefits. Prior to Carrot, Bill led all sales and lead generation for Zipari, a SaaS-based consumer engagement solution for health insurers. His team was instrumental in the company's growth from startup to scale and eventual acquisition by Thoma Bravo, a leading private equity firm. Additionally, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer for Health Republic Insurance of New York, the largest CO-OP health insurance carrier in the nation, leading sales operations, broker relations, strategic sales planning, and marketing growing the company from startup to 220,000 members in less than three years. Prior to joining Health Republic, Bill served as Senior Vice President of Sales at Easy Choice Health Plan of New York, where he was vital in launching the company’s Medicare Advantage products, and Atlantis Health Plan, a provider-owned HMO focused on the commercial health insurance space.

Mr. Friedman’s recent speaking engagements include AHIP and The RISE Summit on Social Determinants of Health.

In his spare time, Bill enjoys live music, playing guitar, the NY Yankees, and he is currently studying for his private pilot’s license. He lives in New York's lower Hudson Valley with his wife, Lisa, four children, and two poodles.

Jamie Galbreath, PhD, MPH, CHES

Quality Improvement Director
UCare

Jamie Galbreath is the Quality Improvement Associate Director for UCare where she provides oversight and manages the HEDIS® chart abstraction team, NCQA Accreditation (both Health Plan and Health Equity Accreditation), Star Ratings (Medicare, Marketplace and Medicaid), and regulatory quality improvement projects. Additionally, she leads clinical and public health performance improvement projects designed to improve member health outcomes.

Jamie has received her doctorate in Public Health with a specialization in Community Health Promotion and Education from Walden University. She also has her Master’s degree in Public Health from Walden University and Bachelors of Science degree in Community Health Education from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She has completed a certificate program from St. Thomas University in Health Care Management. Further, she is a Certified Health Education Specialist and a member of the Minnesota Society for Public Health Education and the Minnesota Public Health Association. Jamie has almost ten years of health care industry work experience and 18 years of experience working in the mental health and substance use field.

Mark Gee

Senior Vice President, Payer and Emerging Markets
WellSky

Mark Gee leads payer and emerging market partnerships at WellSky. His team works with clients to enhance new or existing capitated and risk-based programs, including post-acute care, poly-chronic care, and home-based care coordinated network programs. Additionally, his team leads operationally complex programs for FMC, TRC, PRC HEDIS measures and health equity analytics and gap closure. Mark has spent the majority of his career leading value-based programs at eviCore (Cigna), Optum (UHG), and Verisk Health, supporting over 100 health plans. He also led consulting teams at TheraDoc that worked with 600 hospitals to implement clinical surveillance analytics to improve quality outcomes. Additionally, he has supported global pharmaceutical companies to implement real-world evidence programs, tokenized clinical trials, and electronic clinical outcome assessment (eCOA) initiatives.

Brendan Generelli

Senior Program Manager for Stars and Quality
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island

Brendan Generelli is the Senior Program Manager for Stars and Quality at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island. In his 11 years at BCBSRI, Brendan has had a variety of roles ranging from Customer Service to Operations to Strategy, but has always maintained focus on member and provider experience. Under his management of the 5 Star program, BCBSRI became the first and only plan available to all Rhode Islanders to achieve a 5 Star rating and now has repeated that rating in back to back years.

Addison Giannini

Senior Vice President, Payor Solutions
LetsGetChecked

Addison Giannini is Senior Vice President of Payor Solutions for LetsGetChecked and is responsible for helping many of the nation’s largest health plans refine their member outreach strategy with the aim of improving quality, lowering medical cost, and improving member satisfaction and Net Promoter Score.

Previously, Giannini served as operations manager for Cigna-Healthspring’s Southeast region, where he was responsible for value-based contracting, quality improvement and risk adjustment.

Giannini is a graduate of The University of Alabama, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce and business administration and a master of business administration from Georgia State University.

Renee Golderman

Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer
Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan

With more than 30 years of progressive experience in the health care industry, Renée S. Golderman, MS, RN, NE-BC, is the Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer at CDPHP. In this role, Golderman provides the strategic leadership needed to design, implement, and manage quality improvement programs at CDPHP, and is responsible for the plan being named a 5 Star plan by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Golderman was recently named as one of the Top 100 Women Leaders in New York by Women We Admire.

Golderman is responsible for directing HEDIS,QARR, NCQA, and Medicare Stars initiatives at CDPHP, which includes collaboration among Medicare risk, medical management, care management and network providers to drive innovative initiatives to improve quality outcomes and ensure member satisfaction. She has led health care transformation initiatives, including tools for population health and clinical integration strategies, and assists in design and operational aspects of primary care incentive programs.

Golderman is skilled at fostering relationships while executing on strategic plans to drive quality outcomes focused on the Quadruple Aim. Golderman demonstrates sound understanding of and has broad experience with hospital operations, health care finances, board responsibilities, physician relations, and knowledge of how all entities are interdependent, along with current knowledge of the trends and challenges in health care.

Prior to joining CDPHP, Golderman has held various positions in the health care industry and has a record of accomplishments in a range of health care settings, including both the clinical and administrative aspects of inpatient and outpatient care, quality and risk management, hospital and primary care business operations, as well as health plan leadership and administration. Golderman has served as the director of nursing for Seton Health System, part of the Ascension Health System where she was a recipient of the NYSNA Nursing Excellence Award in Administration/Management. In addition, she held clinical management positions at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, Mass., and New Britain General Hospital in New Britain, Conn. She has also served as a clinical educator for The Eddy in Troy, N.Y.

Golderman earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from SUNY Buffalo, and a Master of Science degree in health care management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Golderman is a nurse executive-board certified, by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), and is a member of the National Association for Healthcare Quality.

Greg Gould

Senior Solutions Engineer
mPulse

Greg Gould is a Senior Solution Engineer at mPulse Mobile, the leader of conversational AI for healthcare. Greg has a Masters of Health Communication from Emerson College and Tufts Medical School and over a decade of experience in health communication, behavioral science, and patient-centered design.

Jill Hanson

Vice President, Regional Pharmacy for the West
Centene

Jill Hanson is VP, Regional Pharmacy for the West. Jill has more than 20 years of managed care pharmacy experience. She received her Doctor of Pharmacy Degree from North Dakota State and a Masters in Business Administration from Arizona State University. She is a board certified psychiatric pharmacist. Prior to this position, Jill served as VP of Pharmacy Operations for Arizona Complete Health from 2017 to 2022 and for Sunshine Health from 2014 to 2017. She also has experience in retail, mail, hospital, PBM and e-commerce pharmacy. In her free time, Jill enjoys spending time with her husband and three daughters, hiking, reading and marathon training.

Jack Holloway

Manager Data Science
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana

An accomplished data scientist, Jack Holloway leverages advanced analytics to identify efficiencies that drive better care and improve health outcomes for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana members. He leads development of actionable advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to help members, as well as commands a cross-functional team launching innovative healthcare tools and services. Holloway, who joined Blue Cross in 2015, established the organization’s predictive modeling process and successfully manages the department’s college intern program. His work has received national recognition, including efforts that informed the state’s COVID-19 response. Holloway earned his master’s degree in analytics from Louisiana State University.

Jenna Horner

Director, Medicare Advantage Product Strategy
Cigna

Jenna joined Cigna Medicare in 2022 and is responsible for the oversight of Cigna’s Medicare Individual products. She is responsible for innovation, new product development, and the implementation and performance of Cigna’s Medicare Advantage plans.

Prior to joining Cigna, she worked for a provider-owned Medicare Advantage plan and was responsible for identifying and executing on market expansions, product development, and vendor management. She also has experience in contract management, healthcare revenue services, value-based incentive programs for physician networks, and managing large IT initiatives for a healthcare company.

A graduate of The Ohio State University with a degree in Health Care Management, Jenna also holds a Master’s in Business Administration – Finance from Tiffin University. Jenna lives in Columbus, OH with her husband and three children.

Priyanka Jain

Vice President, Medicare Quality and Member Experience
Point32Health

Priyanka Jain leads the Medicare Star Quality and Member Experience program for Point32Health in Massachusetts (a not-for-profit formed from the combination of Tufts Health Plan and Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare). Tufts Medicare Preferred is the only HMO plan in Massachusetts, only plan in New England, that has earned 5 Stars 8 years in a row.

With more than 20+ years of healthcare experience, she started her journey as a dentist in India, received a Master’s in Health Education from Texas Woman’s University and a Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Health Care Management and Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Her background has served her well in building a bridge between the clinical and business world in her roles in Clinical Operations, Provider Performance, and Care Coordination at Partner’s Health Care and Beth Israel Lahey, large healthcare systems in Massachusetts.

Educate, Encourage, and Empower are the principles she firmly believes and adheres to in her professional endeavors. Mobilizing people around her to strive for excellence is the mantra that has shaped her and her organization’s remarkable 5 Star success.

She is mom to a 10 year old boy and lives with her family in Sharon, Massachusetts. In her spare time, she loves to learn languages, Mandarin is next on her list.

Jenn Kerfoot

Chief Strategy & Growth Officer
DUOS

Jenn brings their deep understanding of the complexities and nuances within the Medicare Advantage & Value Based Care landscape to their work at DUOS, where they lead business development, go-to-market strategy, and marketing. By leveraging data-driven insights and market intelligence, they spearhead the development of tailored products and services that cater to the unique needs of Medicare Advantage plans and deliver unparalleled value to clients and beneficiaries alike; previous leadership roles include FarmboxRx, Excelera Health and NationsBenefits. Beyond their role at DUOS, Jenn actively contributes to the industry's progress as a thought leader leveraging expertise and advocacy for innovative healthcare practices to enhance healthcare accessibility and quality.

Zachary Kirby

Data Scientist
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana

Zachary Kirby is driven to cultivate machine learning as a tool to improve public health through personalized healthcare. Kirby joined Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana in 2020 and champions cutting-edge artificial intelligence within Advanced Analytics. This includes his most recent collaborative work with an internal pharmacy team, with whom he co-developed a predictive model for medication adherence. It grew from a simple classification problem to performing member-focused interventions. Kirby earned his master’s degree in computer science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. , ,

Catherine Macpherson, MS, RD

Senior Vice President, Healthcare Strategy and Chief Nutrition Officer
Mom’s Meals

Catherine joined Mom's Meals in 2017 and serves as SVP of Healthcare Strategy and Chief Nutrition Officer. She is responsible for ensuring the company's nutrition solutions meet the needs of its partners by designing clinical programs that meet their strategic objectives. Catherine is a Registered Dietitian and healthcare innovator. She earned her Masters of Science degree in Nutrition from the University of Minnesota and her BA from the University of Michigan.

Mallory Mueller

Director Quality Health Integration
Network Health

Mallory provides clinical leadership in the quality department over various population health and quality programs including condition management, wellness, NCQA, HEDIS, clinical appeals review, and Stars. In addition, Mallory works with the clinical integration team to ensure members are receiving the right care at the right place and the right time.

Mallory graduated from UW-Green Bay and is a registered nurse with background in long term care and nursing administration. She lives in the Fox Valley with her husband and three children. She enjoys reading and spending time watching her kids sporting events

Irma O’Brien

Vice President of Population Health
Clearlink Partners

Irma O’Brien is Vice President of Population Health at Clearlink Partners. She is a successful healthcare professional with 25 years of experience leading population health, complex case management, and utilization management initiatives across several managed care organizations. She is known for her extensive knowledge and expertise in designing clinical programs across varying lines of business including D-SNP, implementing quality and process improvements, and developing and managing large clinical teams.

Reva Sheehan

Sr. Director, Customer Insights
mPulse

Reva has more than 15 years’ industry experience ranging from long term care and compound pharmacy management to health plan operations and quality. As an avid collaborator, Reva engages internal and external stakeholders to improve processes for optimal outcomes while keeping the member’s experience at the heart of every conversation.

Patrick Davis

Healthcare Sales Director
Telephone Town Hall Meeting

Patrick Davis is a nationally recognized senior strategic advisor to corporations, campaigns, candidates, and coalitions in the areas of public affairs, politics, communications, marketing and member/public relations.

Cherie Shortridge

Senior Advisor
Healthmine

Cherié brings over 18 years of health care industry experience focused on a health plan operations, quality improvement, regulatory compliance, system implementations, process improvement, and strategic solutions.

Cherié has extensive experience leading organizations through major transitions such as sanction remediation, reorganization, and mergers and acquisitions resulting in sustainable, compliant processes and procedures. She has a strong background in Medicare Advantage with an emphasis on enrollment, reconciliation, premium billing, fulfillment, appeals, grievances, Star ratings, and compliance.

Cherié has helped several organizations create and implement creative, strategic solutions to meet both business and compliance needs by building strong relationships across departments as well as with internal and external vendors to improve performance, provide appropriate healthcare in the right setting in a timely manner, and ensure a positive member experience. She has also conducted and trained staff in preparation for compliance audits for both Medicare Advantage and Medicaid organizations.

In addition to working directly with and for Medicare and Medicaid health plans, Cherié has been a strategic advisor for vendors offering such diverse offerings as remote medical monitoring and a social networking platform to address social and healthcare needs.

Cherié’s background across a variety of operational areas within multiple Medicare Advantage Organizations, Medicaid plans, vendors, and in consulting provides a broad scope of understanding and expertise with the ability to apply creative solutions to achieve optimal results.

Melissa Smith

Chief Consulting Officer
Healthmine

Melissa Smith is the Chief Consulting Officer at Healthmine, bringing over 25 years of experience in Star Ratings, strategy, sales, and marketing for health plans, providers, pharmacy benefit managers, and industry vendors. Melissa has extensive experience developing strategic and tactical solutions to meet client needs and a strong background of building productive partnerships across internal teams and with external vendors to improve performance on clinical, medication, patient survey, and administrative quality measures.

Most recently, Melissa was Executive Vice President, Consulting and Professional Services, at Healthmine and before that, Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing, Strategy and Stars at Gorman Health Group. She is a well-known thought leader and healthcare strategist with proven success developing enterprise-wide solutions to improve Star Ratings, quality performance, health outcomes, and the member experience. Melissa’s team helps clients improve performance within quality ratings systems, evaluate market dynamics and opportunities, optimize distribution channels, and support our clients’ strategic planning needs.

Prior to Gorman Health Group, Melissa served in a leadership capacity at Cigna-HealthSpring. Before working in Medicare Advantage and quality ratings systems, Melissa was an Associate Director at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Melissa received her degree from Purdue University and began her career at KPMG, LLP. Melissa’s unique background of business process, regulatory compliance, and healthcare quality offers our clients unique access to healthcare strategy, quality performance, revenue optimization, and more.

Jessica Thomas, DrPH

Director of Quality
Independent Health

Benjamin Vicidomina

VP Analytics and Quality Improvement
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana

With 15 years of experience in healthcare informatics, Benjamin Vicidomina leads healthcare analytics at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana. He has helped build the organization as a leader among health insurers in predictive analytics and outcomes research that drive greater affordability, better health outcomes, improved access to behavioral health services and improved member experience. And he has been instrumental in driving Blue Cross to a 4.5 Medicare Advantage Star rating. He also has nearly 10 years’ experience leading risk adjustment solutions at Blue Cross.

Among the examples of Vicidomina’s commitment to helping improve the health and lives of Louisianans are when he and his team shared their technological capabilities and expertise beginning in March 2020 to inform the state’s COVID-19 response. He led the Blue Cross partnership with the Louisiana Department of Health. According to the department’s secretary, these efforts have made Blue Cross invaluable and “informed many of the difficult decisions that state leaders have made.” The governor numerous times spoke of the “truly unique” public- private collaboration with Blue Cross. 

Vicidomina’s work and collaborations have been shown in over 20 publications on subjects such as improving health outcomes, reducing healthcare costs and improving patient experience in the healthcare ecosystem. He has an extensive background in software design, consulting, computer systems auditing, and decision support systems. Vicidomina earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of New Orleans and later taught middle school mathematics in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina at a disaster-affected school.

Dr. Sarah Watters

Behavioral Scientist
Wellth

Dr. Watters is a Senior Consultant and Behavioral Scientist at Wellth, a health tech company focused on driving sustained healthy behaviors. She has successfully led multinational research projects, including the EU-funded MonAMI research project, focusing on using telecare to enhance the quality of seniors' lives. Today, at Wellth, she continues this research through her work developing behavioral strategies and frameworks to distill into mobile technologies that are used to help patients with diabetes, hypertension, substance use disorder and many other chronic conditions live healthier lives. Since joining Wellth in 2021, Dr. Watters has been instrumental in driving industry-leading reductions in avoidable inpatient and emergency department utilization, among other key health outcomes.

Dan Weaver

SVP Stars and Quality
Zing Health

Daniel Weaver recently joined Zing Health, a tech-forward health plan based in Chicago, as the Senior Vice President of Stars and Quality. With over 25 years of experience in Operations and Star Ratings strategy, Daniel has previously served as VP, Government Quality Programs at Highmark Wholecare (formerly Gateway Health Plan) and Director of Stars Programs at Highmark Health, helping both organizations achieve and maintain their first 4.5 Star Ratings. In his career, Dan has overseen the development and implementation of many analytics-driven and beneficiary-focused programs, has adopted continuous improvement and operational excellence philosophies for sustained success, and embraces innovation focused on overcoming socioeconomic barriers to achieving health equity and optimal quality outcomes. In his new role with Zing Health, Daniel will focus on implementing a high-performing Stars infrastructure to support the organization’s rapid growth with a focus on servicing special needs members in several states.

Rebecca Welling

Associate Vice President of Risk Adjustment
SelectHealth

Rebecca Welling is the Associate Vice President for SelectHealth, a not for profit Health insurance company serving over one million lives in the Utah, Idaho and Nevada regions. SelectHealth Plan is part of Intermountain Health, the largest healthcare provider in the intermountain West. Rebecca’s responsibilities include oversight of all risk adjustment programs pertinent to Medicare, Medicaid and ACA lines of business with focus on physician coding education, coder training and clinical documentation initiatives. Rebecca directs a team of highly trained HCC coders and educators that perform retrospective, prospective and RADV audits for all government related lines of business. This work entails a thorough understanding of financial implications associated with an efficient and ethical risk adjustment program. In addition, Rebecca’s team oversee encounter data submissions, and analytical analysis of related risk adjustment work. Rebecca also serves in a consultative role for Intermountain Health for risk adjustment related iniatiaves. Rebecca’s primary focuses is to ensure ethical, compliant and comprehensive risk adjustment programs.

John Willis

Vice President of Consulting and Professional Services
Healthmine

John is the Vice President of Consulting and Professional Services at Healthmine. Before joining Healthmine he worked with Emergent Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, where he was the Director of Star Strategy. During his tenure with Emergent Holdings, he worked closely with leadership to build out the Stars Governance Structure, stand up the Stars Performance Office, and develop the Stars Infrastructure dashboard to monitor performance and value of all Star initiatives across the Enterprise. In his first year, he was able to work with the plan partners to achieve 5-Star performance in their PPO plan and move their HMO plan up one full Star to a 4.5. The following year, the plan was able to maintain 4.5 Star performance in both their PPO and HMO plans.

John has over 20 years of experience in Managed Care with the past 15 being spent in Medicare Advantage. He has worked in the Stars area since its inception. He has significant experience in working with D-SNP, I-SNP, and multiple care management areas. John has also been heavily involved in Quality Improvement work with multiple health plans and has worked to ensure plans achieve and maintain their NCQA accreditation. He has a wealth of experience in building out turn-key strategies to ensure measure success in Stars and has a passion for ensuring member experience is a priority with all the plans he has both worked and collaborated with during his career.