Note from the director: NAHRI welcomes new board members

by Jaclyn Fitzgerald

Springtime brings with it many changes—changing the clocks, longer days, warmer nights, and flowers in bloom. For NAHRI, it is also the time of year we see changes to our dedicated Advisory Board. This year, we welcome several new members while also reflecting on the hard work and contributions of our Advisory Board members whose terms come to a close.

This year’s departing Advisory Board members have been with us since NAHRI was just a pie-in-the-sky idea. These enthusiastic NAHRI pioneers helped mold the association from an idea to a reality:

• “I appreciate the experience of serving on the board and helping connect the field of revenue integrity with corporate compliance departments  I hope to stay involved to help shape the partnership and collaboration between revenue integrity professionals and compliance officers for years to come,” says Catherine Boerner, JD, CHC, president of Boerner Consulting, LLC, in New Berlin, Wisconsin. Since 1997, Boerner has supported compliance officers, privacy officers, and security officers. She specializes in compliance program effectiveness reviews, HIPAA privacy gap analysis, and HIPAA security risk analysis and implementation.
• “I was privileged to take part at the start of a great endeavor in the field of revenue integrity with a very reputable group and wish the board of NAHRI continued success as it continues to build and grow in this fairly new healthcare arena. It has been a pleasure and a great learning experience,” says Lisa Longo, CPC, CPC-I, CSMC, CHRI, director of revenue integrity at UConn Health in Farmington, Connecticut. With more than 30 years of experience in hospital revenue cycle, including chargemaster, billing, and internal auditing, Longo has held leadership roles in both patient accounting and revenue integrity.
• “I have been honored to serve on the NAHRI Board and now as an Emeritus board member,” says Donna Schneider, RN, MBA, CPHQ, CPC-P, CHC, CPCO, CHPC, vice president of corporate compliance and internal audit for Lifespan in Providence, Rhode Island. Schneider has more than 30 years of healthcare experience in clinical intensive care, managed care contracting, network management, quality, compliance, privacy, and quality analytics. Prior to her position at Lifespan, she worked as the system revenue compliance operations officer and system compliance operations officer at Yale New Haven Health.
• “It’s been my pleasure to serve on the board and I do plan to stay involved as much as possible. It’s been a great experience for me personally and professionally. NAHRI was a much needed and long overdue organization,” says Diane G. Weiss, CPC, CPB, CCP, CHRI, who joined RestorixHealth in Metairie, Louisiana, in June 2011, which facilitated the formation of the New Orleans office revenue cycle team and subsequent revenue integrity tea,. Prior to joining RestorixHealth (formerly Wound Care Specialists), Weiss was the provider education representative for Medicare in what is now referred to as the JH jurisdiction. She was also the internal Medicare consultant for a large health system and prior to that, managed a general surgery practice for 10 years in the Greater New Orleans area where she served as practice manager and the surgeons in-office medical assistant. 

On behalf of the NAHRI leadership team, board, and members, I would like to thank our departing Advisory Board members for their willingness to see the potential in NAHRI and their desire to make our dream of fostering a revenue integrity community come true.

We welcome the following professionals to the Advisory Board for three-year terms beginning this month:

• Lawrence A. Allen is a member of the defense health agency and the ambulatory coding consultant for the U.S. Air Force Medical Service. His experience includes medical coding, medical coding auditing, coding training, writing program guidance and strategy, writing performance work statements and position descriptions, developing cost estimates and budgets, and developing and executing projects.
• “A strong revenue integrity program can not only preserve hospital/ambulatory margins but more importantly, further drive the mission of delivering high-quality healthcare,” says Christian S. Gabriel, national director of revenue integrity at CommonSpirit Health, a newly formed by the alignment between Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and Dignity Health, in Dublin, California. Gabriel has over 25 years of healthcare experience, 15 years of management, 16 years of revenue cycle/coding, six years of chargemaster experience, five years of experience in Epic implementation with various implementation roles and project management engagements, including attainment of various Epic certifications, and more than three years of experience in the health plan setting.
• “I look forward to working with the new and existing Advisory Board to advance the mission and direction of NAHRI,” says Steven Greenspan, JD, LLM, vice president of regulatory affairs at Optum360 in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. Greenspan is responsible for overseeing the company’s regulatory research and hospital advocacy efforts, and collaborates closely with the Optum appeals management teams to offer support on complex Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial appeals matters. Prior to his time with Optum360, Greenspan led the day-to-day operations of the Part A East Qualified Independent Contractor (QIC) program with MAXIMUS.
• Dr. Joseph Zebrowitz is founder and president of Versalus Health. He has led the Versalus Health team in the development of an innovative approach to 2-midnight rule compliance and managed care utilization review processes. Prior to Versalus Health, Dr. Zebrowitz was managing partner of Devon Hill Capital Partners (DHCP), a diversified healthcare investment firm.
• Caroline Znaniec is a managing director in CohnReznick LLP’s Healthcare Advisory Practice in Baltimore. She is an experienced healthcare advisor with almost 25 years of combined industry and professional experience, focusing on development of strategic methods in the improvement of healthcare revenue operations to reduce costs, optimize revenue, and maintain compliance. Znaniec is also a Chapter Leader of the NAHRI Mid-Atlantic Regional Chapter.

Our incoming board members will work side-by-side with the current Advisory Board to ensure NAHRI is up to date on the latest revenue integrity news and information. We are all committed to ensuring NAHRI members and the revenue integrity profession at large remain visible, connected, and educated. We welcome your feedback as the association continues its work. Please reach out to me directly at jfitzgerald@hcpro.com or to our board members whose information can be found on the Boards and Committees page.