2019 Speakers

Michael Ruiz

As UCare's Vice President of Provider Relations and Contracting, Michael Ruiz leads complex negotiations with providers and develops innovative Medicare, Medicaid and commercial value-based contracting arrangements. He also manages teams and processes to support improved operations and performance at UCare. Ruiz was most recently Vice President, Medicare Market Performance at UnitedHealthcare in Minnetonka, Minn. His responsibilities included overseeing value-based contracting analysis for incentive programs, addressing gaps in Medicare Star Ratings and improving medical cost performance for health plan members. He previously held positions as Senior Director, Accountable Care Strategy at UnitedHealthcare; Senior Provider Contract Manager with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota in Eagan, Minn.; Project Manager with Medical Management, Inc., of Portland, Ore.; and Hospital Director with Banfield Pet Hospitals in the Twin Cities area. Ruiz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota. He is a member of the Health Care Financial Management Association. Ruiz and his family live in St. Paul, Minn., where he coaches the Mendota Heights Athletic Association Football, Highland Hoops Basketball League and Hi-Mac Baseball League, and is president of the Friends of the Oxford Pool.

Robin Wright King

Robin Wright King is Director of Consumer-Directed Health (CDH) Strategy and Product Management at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. She is responsible for the Plan's CDH strategy and offerings. Her work encompasses development of strategies to bring relevant and enabling benefit designs to the market that are easy to use and help members to make informed healthcare decisions for themselves and their families. This includes all aspects of the consumer engagement and experience for those enrolled in CDH plans including healthcare financial accounts, communications, education, wellness incentives, and adoption strategies. She previously managed the consumer-directed health function at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Lili Brillstein

Lili Brillstein is a nationally recognized thought leader in the advancement of Episodes of Care as a value- based approach for specialty care. She is the Director of Episodes of Care for the Market Innovations team of Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, and, under her leadership, has built the largest program for commercially insured patients in the country. Lili is responsible for the overall direction, strategy, design and oversight of the Horizon Episodes of Care/Bundled Payment Program. When Lili joined Horizon in January of 2013, the Episodes program was still in pilot and included only total hip and total knee replacement episodes. The program has grown to include additional orthopaedic episodes (including low back/laminectomy, shoulder replacement, knee arthroscopy), obstetrics and gynecology, GI (including a Crohn's episode with a fully integrated behavioral health component), cardiology, and oncology. Lili is a passionate advocate of Episodes of Care/Bundled Payments as a strategy to successfully migrate from fee for service to quality- & value-based models that rewards providers for excellent outcomes and patient experience, while reducing the overall cost of healthcare.

Lili is a guest lecturer on episodes of care/bundled payments at the Harvard Business School working under Michael Porter, and has co-authored several peer-reviewed articles on the subject of Episodes. In addition, Lili has served as an Advisor to CMS on bundled payments, and is on the Advisory Boards of the US Women’s Health Alliance and the Quality Cancer Care Alliance; both national coalitions focused on advancing value based care to improve quality and cost of care delivery. Lili’s expertise at cultivating functionally collaborative relationships between payers and providers across the full continuum of health care has allowed not only the pillars of the triple aim to be achieved, but the spirit of the relationships has shifted from one of adversaries to one of collaborators.

Jason Woods

Raul Matas

Raul is the director of analytics at Kaiser Health Plan Claims AA Optimization. He has also formerly led the operational reporting, project management office, application development, quality assurance and cost containment functions in the claims operation. Prior to his current role, he was one of the original core leadership team members on the program to replace the claims platform, and led the finance function and business case development for that project approved by KPCAC in 2010.

Raul began his career at KP in 2007 as an internal consultant supporting claims operations first in finance, then in quality. Prior to KP, Raul held roles at Hewlett-Packard HP Services North America where he began as a financial analyst and planning and reporting manager, then led the finance function for HP Global Corporate Account Sales Organization. Raul earned his undergraduate business degree in accounting and information systems and M.B.A. in finance, both from the University of Southern California.

Raul's daughter, Avery, attended both Wheelock College in Boston and Marymount Manhattan in New York City and is on a work study in Paris France. He lives in Pasadena, CA, with wife Nandani and performs regularly as an opera baritone in recitals and full productions with local opera companies.

Timothy C. Zevnik, CIPP/US, CIPP/G

Timothy C. Zevnik, CIPP/US, CIPP/G, is the Vice President Compliance & Corporate Privacy Official for Molina Healthcare Inc., a national managed care organization based in Long Beach, California. He joined the company in 2001 and served as the HIPAA program manager until he was promoted to the director position in 2006. In 2003, he was named the company’s first privacy official, a role he still retains. Mr. Zevnik has over 20 years of experience in the health care industry. Prior to his work at Molina he held several management and analyst positions at PacifiCare of California, and was an analyst at Safeguard Health Enterprises.

He specialized in regulatory compliance and ensured that company operations complied with state and federal laws in a cost-effective manner. Mr. Zevnik earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California Santa Cruz and earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of California Irvine. Mr. Zevnik is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional.

Kim Roelfson

Kim Roelfson is the corporate revenue management, director of customer service for Centura Health. She joined Centura in 2011 and has oversight of customer service, vendor contracts & management and new associate & leader onboarding. Kim is passionate about providing gold standard customer service to Centura patients and customers while maintaining or exceeding self-pay collection goals. She enjoys and has had much success in bringing cross functional enterprise teams together to create standardized workflows and efficiencies that drive a positive patient experience from the time of registration through the billing and collections. Kim earned her Bachelors of Science in Business Administration from Regis University. In her spare time, she loves spending time with her family in the great outdoors of Colorado.

Michael Rawdan, Ph.D., MBA

Michael is responsible for Account Management & charter for a structure that redefines the Patient Financial Experience for the largest Provider in Idaho. He has over 20 years' experience in customer management and patient experience working for firms such as Capital One and Hewlett-Packard.

Michael has held various roles across diverse organizations including customer management and insights for Capital One. At Hewlett-Packard, Michael was the Executive responsible for a $2B e-Commerce organization. Within HP, Michael managed Data & Analytics to drive user interface changes that drove significant improvements in performance.

These experiences have led Michael to St. Luke's Health System where he has been tasked with identifying and developing solutions that improve Patient Financial Experience from end to end. This is defined as pre-patient experience through each step of the clinical and non-clinical touch points.

Michael holds a BS in Marketing from the University of Tampa, MBA from Northwest Nazarene University and a dual PhD. in International Business & Decision Sciences from NOVA Southeastern University.

Sierra Tomlinson RN MBA BSN OCN

A Florida native, Sierra entered the medical field in 2003 after graduating with a BSN from the University of Florida and MBA from Webster University. Prior to joining Florida Cancer Specialists (FCS) in 2009, she worked in multiple areas of healthcare, including patient care, reimbursement, and clinical and business management. During her time at FCS prior to being named the Director of Value Based Care Sierra worked as a Head Nurse caring for patients in multiple FCS clinics and then as Senior Project Manager in our Operational Excellence Department assisting in collaborative efforts with Clinical and Operations teams to enhance processes throughout the organization. As the Director of Value Based Care, Sierra is responsible for overseeing the success of the value-based care initiatives, as well as implementing new strategies to meet the needs of the demanding value-based programs. Sierra enjoys spending time with her family, volunteering, boating and cheering for the Gators.

Stuart Hanson

June St. John, CTP

June has 32 years of Treasury Services product management and customer service experience. Since 2005, she has helped lead Wells Fargo's solutions development for the healthcare industry. Currently she is responsible for Wells Fargo's Revenue Cycle Management - Claims Payment Solution for Commercial/Government Insurance Payments product strategy and Supplier Payment Solution, a healthcare provider supply chain management payables strategy.

June is a frequent presenter and author on the convergence of healthcare and banking.

June holds both graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL.

Jim Crawford

Mr. Crawford is a relationship officer for the Healthcare Sales team for BNY Mellon's Treasury Services, responsible for marketing domestic and international cash management solutions to organizations in the healthcare industry. These include insurance companies, hospital systems, pharmaceuticals, biotech and both manufacturers and distributors of medical devices.

Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Jim led Finance and Accounting Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) efforts in North America for Cognizant, a global leader in business and technology services, where he was responsible for business development for Finance and Accounting in North America. Jim's past roles include vice president of Business Development at SourceNet, the BNY Mellon Accounts Payable Services group where he managed relationships with the company's clients and prospects in the Midwest and Northeastern United States. Prior to joining SourceNet, Jim worked in a number of business development roles, developing human resources and benefits solutions for Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and led the document management outsourcing efforts for the Healthcare National Account organization of Standard Register. Jim is a graduate of Iowa State University.

Jim has been a guest speaker on the topic of financial process outsourcing and accounts payable processes at several National AFP conferences and over a dozen regional financial conferences and meetings.

Michael Manna

Charles Stellar

Mr. Crawford is a relationship officer for the Healthcare Sales team for BNY Mellon's Treasury Services, responsible for marketing domestic and international cash management solutions to organizations in the healthcare industry. These include insurance companies, hospital systems, pharmaceuticals, biotech and both manufacturers and distributors of medical devices.

Prior to joining BNY Mellon, Jim led Finance and Accounting Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) efforts in North America for Cognizant, a global leader in business and technology services, where he was responsible for business development for Finance and Accounting in North America. Jim's past roles include vice president of Business Development at SourceNet, the BNY Mellon Accounts Payable Services group where he managed relationships with the company's clients and prospects in the Midwest and Northeastern United States. Prior to joining SourceNet, Jim worked in a number of business development roles, developing human resources and benefits solutions for Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and led the document management outsourcing efforts for the Healthcare National Account organization of Standard Register. Jim is a graduate of Iowa State University.

Jim has been a guest speaker on the topic of financial process outsourcing and accounts payable processes at several National AFP conferences and over a dozen regional financial conferences and meetings.

Erin Weber

Erin Richter Weber is the Director of CAQH CORE, a non-profit alliance of healthcare industry leaders whose mission is the creation and adoption of healthcare operating rules that support standards, accelerate interoperability, and align administrative and clinical activities among providers, payers and consumers. Erin has been with CAQH CORE for more than eight years. In this role, she oversees the CAQH CORE operating rule development process, education and outreach, and participant relations. Prior to joining CAQH, Erin served as a consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) where she managed engagements for government clients and as the lead revenue cycle researcher at the Advisory Board Company.

Lee Barrett

Lee Barrett is the Executive Director of The Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission (EHNAC), a federally recognized, standards development organization designed to improve transactional quality, operational efficiency and data security in healthcare, where has served in that capacity since the commission's inception in 1993. He has 10 years of experience leading healthcare professional services organizations including PricewaterhouseCoopers, SAIC, Covansys and Virtusa and 20 years in senior management roles in payer organizations including Travelers and Aetna. He has held senior leadership positions with the American Dental Association Business Enterprises Inc. (ADABEI), the for-profit, wholly owned subsidiary of the ADA, a provider organization and has led several healthcare software/services development companies including: MBEXX, Claredi, HealthEC and others in which for many he facilitated their growth and acquisition. He has served as chairman of WEDI, and ASCX12N Insurance Subcommittee and currently serves on the eHi Leadership Council and DirectTrust Board and has been on many other industry boards.

A member of both the HHS Cybersecurity Task Force (405d) and ONC Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Tiger Team as well as Chair of the National Trust Network Data Sharing and Cybersecurity Task Group, Barrett works on key HIT industry initiatives that lay the foundation for health information technology – including support and implementation of important healthcare legislative mandates. He speaks nationally regarding security, privacy, ransomware and cybersecurity risk management/assessment and mitigation strategies, tactics and best practices and is a continued go-to resource for industry media.

Karly Rowe

Karly leads New Product Development at Experian Health, owning and driving the product process from concept to development and launch of new products, features, and platforms. Leveraging her diverse background across credit, retail, and healthcare, she is responsible for finding new ways to leverage Experian’s data and analytical capabilities to develop new, innovative solutions to the healthcare industry. Karly also leads the Identity Management and Care Management product portfolios, helping healthcare organizations match, manage, and protect patient identities across the ecosystem to provide better care coordination. Karly has been with Experian for more than seven years and holds a Masters of Business Administration from Arizona State University and a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing Management and Retail Management from Syracuse University.

Judy LB Parker, EdD

Judy Parker is the Enterprise Director of Patient Access for Presbyterian Healthcare Services in Albuquerque, NM. Prior to Presbyterian Judy worked for a variety of for-profit and non-profit healthcare organizations, primarily in the Patient Access arena. Judy is a graduate from Grand Canyon University with a Masters in Leadership with an emphasis on Disaster Preparedness and Crisis Management. She is currently a candidate for an Educational Doctorate in Organizational Leadership with an emphasis on Health Care Administration. The focus on her dissertation is based on the patient experience. Judy is passionate about healthcare, Patient Access, and most importantly the patient’s perception of their experience.

Presbyterian Healthcare Services is focused on improving the patient experience, the patient’s financial outlook and improving the financial well-being of the organization. As part of the process PHS has focused on being an effective patient financial communicator. PHS has been recognized as a PFC adopter and proudly displays their certificates in each facility.

Ryan O’Hara

Ryan O'Hara joined NAH in 2015 as chief revenue officer with a focus on the immediate priorities of record integrity, optimizing operations, lowering cost and enhancing both the patient and physician experience. These remain the driving goals for the revenue cycle operations at NAH, which include access management; patient advocacy; health and care management; coding; billing and follow-up; cash posting; customer service; revenue integrity; denials management; and revenue cycle patient experience and optimization. Ryan brings more than 17 years of revenue cycle experience in various arenas. Consistently focused on the goal of integrating the clinical and business realms of the health continuum, Ryan and his team focus on the holistic approach of patient experience, revenue/record integrity and cost management. This approach has earned Ryan many opportunities to speak nationally and serve the industry in advisory capacities, including a current seat on the Revenue Cycle Management Leaders Forum Advisory Board. Ryan holds a bachelor's of science degree in business administration/marketing from Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo., where he also played varsity basketball and golf.

Samuel E. Rubenstein

Brad Tinnermon

W. Christopher Johnson, FHFMA

Chris Johnson has been employed in the healthcare finance field for more than 30 years. During this time Chris has worked in multiple environments including sole community providers, an academic medical center and in integrated healthcare delivery system. He is current employed by Atrium Health in Charlotte as Vice President Revenue Cycle Management Regional Facilities and Unified Business Office. In his current role, Chris oversees the Unified Business Office which is responsible for “patient facing” billing functions for both hospital and professional billing operations for the Atrium Health Owned facilities. In addition, Chris leads the Regional PFS Team which supports revenue cycle operations for the regional healthcare facilities affiliated with the HealthCare System. Chris is a Fellow in the Healthcare Financial Management Association and an active member of the North Carolina Chapter of HFMA where he has served in numerous leadership positions including Chapter President. Chris has also worked with National HFMA on the Board of Examiners, National Advisory Council, Regional Executive for Region IV, and the Chapter Advancement Team. In 2017 received the Fredrick C. Morgan Award, the highest service award presented by National HFMA. Chris received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Montreat College in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and is certified in Epic Resolute Hospital Billing and Single Billing Office Administration.

Donna Houlne BSN, MHA, MHRM

Donna Houlne, a senior healthcare executive with more than 30 years of hospital operations and consulting experience, has proven ability to create multi-disciplinary alliances and teams in order to meet the demands of the challenging and fluid healthcare environment. Recognized for being a hands-on, pro-active troubleshooter who can rapidly identify business problems, formulate resolution strategies, initiate change and implement new processes in challenging and diverse environments.

Key strengths include: Ability to develop and manage complex and diverse relationships; Strong project management; highly principled and values driven individual; Resourceful and creative problem-solver;

Donna has worked in or served most segments of the healthcare industry including Provider; not-for-profit, for-profit, academic medical centers; physician office practices healthcare payers, and life science industry.

Prasanna Ganesan

Prasanna is the founder and CEO of Machinify, a data-to-cash platform transforming enterprises with AI-driven products and processes. After receiving his PhD in Computer Science at Stanford, he co-founded VUDU in 2005 (acquired by Walmart 2010). His pioneering work as CTO resulted in over 30 patents and his receiving the 2013 Home Entertainment Visionary award. Prasanna is the recipient of the President of India Gold Medal for his academic accomplishments and also holds the distinction of being the #1 ranked student entering the Indian Institute of Technology.