MedAmerica is proud of the wealth of expertise and talent throughout its organization. Each consulting team is designed with specialists who can best address the needs of the project for optimal results.

Examples of recent consulting engagements at a variety of sites include:

• Low Volume Emergency Department Assessment: Chart flow and revenue cycle recommendations resulted in decreased bill processing time and improved capture of all charges. Other outcomes of the review suggested code updates and modifications in documentation tools.
  
  
• Large Volume Emergency Department Operational Overview: Extensive operational assessment, staff team-building sessions, and recommendations for short and long-term planning goals.
  
  
• Large Multi-Hospital Consulting: Revenue cycle project focused on supplementation of copay collection, financial couselors, registration accuracy, and ED operational efficiency.
  

Implementation of recommendations resulted in:

• Decreased bad debt
• Improved collections
• Decreased back office billing corrections

Below is a sampling of team members from various areas. Additionally, many of our physician clients are also available for consultations.

Mike Harrington
Michael Harrington has over 25 years of experience in healthcare as well as an impressive record of service to the America College of Emergency Physicians as a lecturer at its management conferences. Mike is a Certified Public Accountant and serves as the CEO of MedAmerica and MedAmerica Billing Services, Inc.

Leslie Anglada
Leslie Anglada has over 15 years of experience in hospital administration and physician practice management. Her wealth of experience in healthcare management is invaluable in developing and successfully implementing new service lines in the hospitalist and ED call panel management arenas, as well as evaluating the performance of existing programs.

Jeff Baldwin
Jeff Baldwin is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of Healthcare Financial Management Association. He has over 15 years of experience in healthcare finance focusing on developing equity ownership structures for medical groups, presenting financial information to physicians and negotiating leases and contracts.

Roger Brummer
Roger Brummer is a Certified Healthcare Financial Professional of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. He brings a wealth of knowledge to the reimbursement area with his 40 years of experience in the healthcare industry. He is a recognized expert on managed care contract review and negotiation for emergency professional services.

Bonnie Carl
Bonnie Carl has a well established career in the medical field and over 32 years of experience that includes senior hospital management as well as a Principle Consultant role for healthcare organizations. She has combined nursing and management expertise in process improvement, reengineering workflow, staff development, construction management, equipment and interiors planning, and new product line development and implementation.

Nancy Carlson
Nancy Carlson has over 30 years of experience in nursing, nursing management, quality and patient safety. Nancy’s most recent work focuses on capacity management/patient flow, risk reduction, quality outcomes, and improving systems to ensure safe patient care. She is considered an expert and has spoken nationally on the topic of quality and patient safety. A founding member of the California Nursing Outcomes Coalition (CalNOC, the largest ongoing statewide nurse staffing and nursing quality measurement database project in the nation), she serves on its Governance and Advisory Board. Nancy is also a past president of the Association of California Nurse Leaders.

Steve Escamilla
Steve Escamilla has an extensive background in performance management and operational improvement with a variety of healthcare organizations. A Board Certified Healthcare Executive, he is an expert in facilitating strategic and operational change that benefits hospital clients, their staffs, and their patients. Steve also has expertise in quality, medical staff services, change management, and the analysis and design of complex clinical and business processes using Lean and Six Sigma methodologies. He is a former president of the Society for Health Systems, and currently serves as the Vice President for Technical Networking for the Institute of Industrial Engineers.

Sarah Ann Hay
Sarah Ann Hay brings over 15 years of healthcare experience to the marketing and communications area. Sarah is experienced in positioning hospitals and physicians for success through the use of various internal and external media tools as well as developing site marketing plans.

Nancy B. Hall
Nancy Hall has over 19 years of healthcare experience, 14 of which are specifically in Healthcare Information Technology, selecting, implementing and managing applications for hospitals and physicians. She also has over 7 years of corporate strategic planning experience and alignment of IT strategy with business strategies. She is an experienced public speaker and has been a participant in national speaking forums on Information Systems Selection Process and installation of client server technology in the healthcare industry.

Christina Palombo
Christina Palombo has over 30 years of experience in nursing, nurse management, emergency department management, and patient safety risk management. She has a proven record of introducing innovative patient-oriented assessment and treatment systems; documenting and tracking quality outcomes; building cross-trained, cohesive teams; and improving patient and family satisfaction. She has served as a speaker and industry expert on streamlining emergency processes for presentations to executives and clinical management staff for premier medical centers and community hospitals. Christy is also a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality.

Patti Papeleux
Patti Papeleux has 25 years of healthcare experience and as the COO of MedAmerica provides strategic planning and program coordination for many MedAmerica service engagements. Her risk management background also qualifies her to serve as a director of MedAmerica Mutual Risk Retention Group.

Tom Powers
Tom Powers has more than 20 years experience as an attorney with executive management level experience in hospitals and healthcare delivery systems; most recently as a professionally certified Compliance and HIPAA Privacy Officer. Tom has successfully developed and implemented compliance programs for physician groups and has guided them through corporate integrity agreements with federal regulators

John Ruffner
John Rufffner’s career in healthcare covers 25 years and is divided between Hospital Executive positions and Physician Group / Practice management. His experience includes opening a new hospital / ED, completion of a 64 bed ED re-model and closure of a small hospital ED. He has managed physician office based practices as well as IPA based medical groups. Mr. Ruffner has served in large urban facilities (San Francisco, Las Vegas) as well as small sole provider (4 bed ED) rural hospitals with FQHC operations. He has detailed experience with operations, billing and finance. Mr. Ruffner has also served on the graduate faculty of several universities including UC Berkeley and San Diego State University.

Matt Sartain
Matt Sartain has over 16 years experience in health care consulting. As a Practice Management Consultant, he has developed and implemented several programs that have greatly improved the financial and operational performance of our client emergency departments and urgent care centers. Matt's strong background in regulation (JCAHO, EMTALA, Title 22) quality and risk management round out the comprehensive expertise of the MedAmerica consulting team.