Jeanne Boling, RN, MSN, CCM
Vice President
Mullahy & Associates
Little Rock, Arkansas

Jeanne Boling, RN, MSN, CCM, the Vice President of Mullahy & Associates, offers a national perspective on patient advocacy, direct-to-consumer case management, integrated care management and collaborative practice trending. Mullahy & Associates is a leading case management education and consulting organization. Ms. Boling has served as Executive Director of the Case Management Society of America, a rapidly growing multidisciplinary professional association. She is the founding leader and former executive director of the Case Management Leadership Coalition and has served on the Utilization Review and Accreditation Commission (URAC) Board of Directors, the Commission for Case Manager Certification (CCMC) and Advisory Boards for numerous publications, insurance, managed care, biotech and pharmaceutical companies.

To contact Jeanne Boling: jeanne.boling@gmail.com

Cathy Cress, MSW
Founder
GCM Consult
San Jose, California

Cathy Cress, MSW, is Founder of GCM Consult, working with small and national proprietors who want to enhance or launch a geriatric care management business. Ms. Cress was the founder and director of Cresscare, a geriatric care management business, for 25 years. She has taught geriatric care management at San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley and currently teaches at Cabrillo College and San Mateo College.

Her new book, Mom Loves You Best: Forgiving and Forging Sibling Relationships, published by New Horizon Press, will be out in October 2010. Handbook of Geriatric Care Management, published by Jones and Bartlett, will be out in a third edition in December 2010. Care Managers: Working With the Aging Family, also published by Jones and Bartlett, is focused on the aging family. She is on the faculty at the University of Florida for the online master’s program in geriatric care management. She writes a weekly blog at http://agingfamilydial411.blogspot.com/ and her website is www.agingfamily411.com/index.html.

To contact Cathy Cress: cressgcm@got.net

C. Taney Hamill is a healthcare executive with over 30 years of experience. In 2009 Ms. Hamill co-founded Silopanna Healthcare Consulting, which spans the full healthcare continuum from designing, developing and implementing public healthcare programs to assisting healthcare organizations with regulatory compliance, operational effectiveness and business development.

Before co-founding Silopanna, Ms. Hamill served as Chief Executive Officer for the Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation, a nonprofit foundation established to help senior executive women in the healthcare industry to improve their businesses and continue to grow professionally, including serving as members of a board of directors of the Fortune 500/1000 companies.

Ms. Hamill is currently on the following Boards of Directors: the Women Business Leaders of the U.S. Healthcare Industry Foundation Board, the Washington Adventist Hospital Foundation Board, the Advisory Board of Schooner Health, LLC. and the National Coalition for Quality Colorectal Cancer Screening & Care Advisory Board, and the City of Annapolis Advisory Board of Recreation and Parks.

To contact Taney Hamill: taney_hamill@comcast.net

Betty Long, RN, MHA

President and Founder

Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates

As a registered nurse for the past 24 years, Betty Long’s experiences as a nurse and manager proved to her that maneuvering through today’s healthcare system can be daunting, especially when you don’t have someone to help you navigate the system.

Those experiences, and other more personal ones, led Long to launch Guardian Nurses Healthcare Advocates in October 2003. Guardian Nurses provides advocacy services for clients, both corporate and private, throughout the United States.

Long, who serves as Guardian Nurses’ president, began her career in 1986 as a critical care nurse and after getting her masters’ degree in healthcare administration, went on to leadership positions in hospital administration and healthcare consulting. In addition to her hospital career, Long has management experience in long-term care and in working with the out-patient senior population.

Long’s advocacy work has been featured on National Public Radio’s Marketplace show. Guardian Nurses success has also been featured in the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Business Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, and the New England Healthcare Journal. In November 2008, Long was honored in New York by TAG Heuer North America and Glamour Magazine for making a difference in her community. The "What Are You Made Of” award was presented by TAG spokesperson Uma Thurman in conjunction with Glamour’s Women of the Year Gala at Carnegie Hall. In March 2009, Guardian Nurses’ work was featured in a healthcare segment on Action News, WPVI-TV, in Philadelphia. In September 2009, Long’s work with a client was featured in a New York Times Business Section article entitled, "After a Diagnosis, Someone to Help Point the Way.”

Long is also a contributing editor for Employee Benefit News, a monthly national magazine for employee benefits professionals. She speaks regularly to healthcare professionals, insurance industry and human resources’ professionals and consumers and enjoys ‘spreading the word’ about healthcare advocacy.

Lee Saviola is an accomplished human resources executive and expert in organization development, change management and outsourcing strategy.  Throughout her career she has designed and launched cutting-edge approaches in healthcare administration and human capital management. Well-positioned in   senior leadership and consulting, she has led strategic benefits/HR initiatives related to mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and start up operations.

Lee’s expertise in leading change emerged in the embryonic days of managed care.  As Director of Benefits, AT&T, she directed the full replacement of healthcare programs and administration -  a phased-in national roll-out of managed care for one million plan participants, including retirees and  two major collective bargaining units. She was pivotal in establishing and expanding network services and operations to meet the needs of employees and optimized opportunities to ‘advocate for advocacy’ in partnering with insurance companies and hospital systems to create centers of excellence, disease management initiatives and outcomes reporting. In this role, she directed the design, development and operational launch of a newly-established national outsourcing vendors, an initiative that integrated internal and external communications, informational seminars, technical and customer service training, systems integration, national and local union relations, national media presence and industry alignment. She leveraged her expertise at AETNA HEALTH PLANS where she was Vice President of Electronic Health and launched the first web-based healthcare benefits administration system which ultimately scaled to serve 21 million members, 400,000 providers and 100,000 employers. She further served as Director-Strategic Alliances with Accenture in the U.K. in an HR outsourcing joint venture with British Telecom.  Most recently, she channeled her broad background towards business development and relationship management to drive outsourcing products to mid-size markets.

Lee’s leadership in strategic initiatives have garnered team awards: ACE and Gold Quill from the International Association of Business Communicators, in addition to AT&T’s outsourcing initiatives recognized as PRODUCT OF THE YEAR by HR MAGAZINE. She has served as company spokesperson for media relations and industry forums.

Widely published in professional journals, Lee has authored articles such as "The Internet and Business Transformation” and was featured in "Payer ‘equipped’ for the Future”.   She chaired the Business Advisory Group of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Organizations (JCAHO), served on the Accreditations Committee for the National Association for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and was a member of the Congressional Briefing Panel of the Business Roundtable on Healthcare Reform.

Lee received a B.A. in English from Pace University and a M.S. in Organization Development from American University.  She is a certified by the National Training Labs (NTL) Institute, Alexandria, Va., as a Group Facilitator.

To contact Lee: esaviola@verizon.net

Bonnie G. Schreck, CCS, CPC, CPC-H, CCS-P, COBGC
Director, Clinical Content
Contexo Media
Salt Lake City, Utah

Bonnie G. Schreck, CCS, CPC, CPC-H, CCS-P, has been involved in healthcare for 25 years. She started in the field in medical records at an HMO, and then worked at a major university teaching facility where she was involved with billing, coding, ED, outpatient and inpatient visits. She has worked at the AAPC as a coding manager and with a major healthcare data company, having responsibility for specialty and other coding reference books and healthcare coding content. She has also performed numerous seminars and audits for hospitals and physicians, mainly on ICD-9-CM and ICD-10, CPT and HCPCS coding. Ms. Schreck is currently Director of Clinical Content at Contexo Media, where she manages coding books and healthcare data content. She is a member of AHIMA and the AAPC.

To contact Bonnie Schreck: bschreck@contexomedia.com

Sandra Stimson, CALA, ADC, CDP
National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners

Sandra Stimson, CALA, ADC, CDP, is the executive director of the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners, LLC and has more than 15 years of experience in long-term care. Her experience is as an assistant administrator, dementia coordinator, activity director, activity consultant, national speaker, corporate trainer, regional activity director and support group leader. She is active on numerous boards.  She has worked in a variety of long-term care settings, boarding homes, residential facility and nursing homes. She is an activity consultant and corporate consultant to several national chains. Ms. Stimson is also a consultant to facilities that wish to implement dementia units or survey readiness in the area of activities or dementia units. Ms. Stimson is a Certified Dementia Practitioner, Certified Assisted Living Administrator and Certified Activity Director and a member of a member of NJAPA and NCCAP.

To contact Sandra Stimson, nationalccdp@aol.com

Jamie M. Verdi, Esq.
Founder
Michigan Patient Advocacy Liaison, PLLC ("MI-PAL”)
Rochester, Michigan

Jamie Verdi is Michigan Patient Advocacy Liaison’s (MI-PAL's) principal. She is an attorney with an advanced healthcare law degree. She previously worked for a national healthcare company as its healthcare attorney, where she took care of healthcare regulatory compliance, risk management and patient care concerns. In addition, she has firsthand experience caring for numerous family members in long-term care facilities. Ms. Verdi is an accredited attorney for the preparation, presentation, and prosecution of claims for veterans’ benefits before the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and she worked many years as a judicial law clerk in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

To contact Jamie Verdi: jamieverdi@mipalhealth.com