2023 All-Star Speakers

Rebecca Adam, MBA

Saeed Aminzadeh

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.

Julie Billman

Julie Billman is Vice President of Medicare at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield (CareFirst). Julie came to CareFirst to oversee the Medicare products including to implement an organic member-focused Medicare Advantage plan.  Her guidance culminated in the launch of two Medicare Advantage with Prescription Drug (MAPD) individual products that became effective in 2021 and a MAPD EGWP PPO product in 2022.

Julie has been working in the Medicare field for 29 years and began by helping Coventry Health Care file its first Medicare application and implement its Medicare Advantage program.  CareFirst is not her first Blues experience; she served as a Director of Policy and Planning for Medicare at Capital BlueCross BlueShield.  Most recently, Julie served as Senior Vice President of Operations and Performance at Gorman Health, overseeing a variety of projects for operational functions and implementations for Medicare Advantage plans.

Andre Bliss, Ph.D., MBA

Luis Cerda

Luis has a Master’s degree in Economics and 10 years of experience in the Medicare Star Ratings Program. He previously worked as a Stars Director for the northeast region’s markets at Cigna and at MCS in Puerto Rico. During his tenure at these companies he helped all contracts improve at least half a Star in 1-2 years. In his free time Luis enjoys traveling, road trips, and cycling.

Shirley Doyle, MPH

Mike Eaton, PharmD

Mike Eaton, PharmD started with SelectHealth in 2012. As the Director of Pharmacy Government Programs, he is responsible Medicare, Medicaid, and FEHB lines of business. He ensures that all major aspects of the Part D program are functioning and set up properly. This includes writing and updating policies and procedures, taking the lead on any new guidance released from CMS to make certain it is incorporated into daily processes, and working to make sure all programs and processes are in compliance with CMS regulations. Dr. Eaton is also responsible for the clinical aspects of Part D including formulary maintenance and Medication Therapy Management protocols. In addition, he oversees the Medicaid and FEHB lines of business to ensure compliance and efficiency.

Dr. Eaton began his career in Medicare Part D in 2006 with RxAmerica (now CVS Caremark). He was involved initially with prior authorizations and member facing functions. However, in 2007 he moved to the Medicare Services department where he began working directly with clients and CMS on Medicare Part D. Dr. Eaton was the point of contact for RxAmerica’s Medication Therapy Management program and had the charge of primary contact for all formulary concerns and questions. He has worked in Medicare Part D since inception in 2006.

Dr. Eaton has worked in pharmacy for over 15 years earning his Doctor of Pharmacy at Idaho State University in 2006. He is an active member of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy.

Allie El-Tawil

Allie El-Tawil

Allie El-Tawil has spent that past 7 years in the healthcare industry focused on quality improvement for the Medicare Advantage population. Allie’s true passion for making healthcare easy and accessible to the aging population brought her to her current role as the Stars Business Analyst for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, the state’s largest locally owned insurer. In this role Allie focuses on improving the member experience while project managing multiple quality improvement initiatives throughout the year.

Allie earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition from Arizona State University, and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Arizona. Allie is also a member of the Arizona Public Health Association.

Jamie Galbreath, PhD, MPH, CHES

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.

Savannah Gonsalves, RN, MHA

Savannah Gonsalves, RN-BSN, MHA is the Quality Manager at Hometown Health in Reno, Nevada. She took this role in December of 2017. Her background includes a nursing career in telemetry, specialty practice management, and clinical informatics. Savannah received her first bachelors in Health Information & Informatics Management in 2008 from Boise State University and her Nursing degree in 2011. Quality and patient care are her passion, but administration is her strength, which led her into administrative roles that allowed her to improve the care for patients not only on the hospital floor, but within the entire healthcare system. In her role as a Clinical Nursing Informatics Specialist, she worked directly on ACO initiatives through collaboration with providers, workflow standardization, and EMR technology enhancements to improve quality metrics for a non-profit integrated health care delivery system. This experience lead her to her current role at Hometown Health. Her responsibilities include developing innovative ways to increase clinical quality metrics, improve member experience, and provider engagement.

Kena Hahn, MHA

Kena Hahn is the Director of Medicare Stars and Outpatient Care Coordination for Health Alliance, a vertically integrated health system with Carle that provides coverage to Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and parts of Washington state. She has 5 years of experience in star ratings including value based contracting, supplemental benefits design, vendor management and collaborates with other population health teams to drive improvement. Prior to working in the health plan industry, Kena served in a variety of roles in ambulatory operations with a focus on process improvement and overall patient experience. She brings over 19 years of experience in the healthcare field with a focus on Star ratings, patient/member experience and process improvement.

In her current role, Kena has responsibility for creating and implementing an overall strategy to improve Star Ratings for Health Alliance’s Medicare Advantage products as well as oversight for all Outpatient Care Coordination teams and the population health digital strategy at the health plan.

In addition to her Bachelor of Science degrees in Biology and Marketing, Kena also has her Master’s in Health Administration degree. The ultimate vision she has for the Stars program is to utilize predictive analytics in conjunction with collaboration from the entire health plan organization and provider partners to reach and sustain a five star rating for our Medicare Advantage products.

Nikki Hungate, MS, MHA

Nikki Hungate, a long-time resident of the Western New York region, currently serves as the Senior Leader of Medicare & Government Programs Product Strategy at MVP Health Care. Utilizing the 17 years of experience in the health plan industry she is accountable for leading a team of product innovators that create and deliver a suite of high-quality government products that address the needs of the community in a customer-centric fashion, placing emphasis on those populations that are most vulnerable and underserved.

Nikki holds a Bachelor and Master of Science in Health Administration from Roberts Wesleyan College. She is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Charleston in the Executive Leadership program. Nikki has a passion for sharing knowledge, and also serves as an adjunct professor in the health sciences degree programs at Monroe Community College and Roberts Wesleyan College. In her free time, she volunteers as fundraising coordinator for the local Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Rochester, NY.

Katie Ford

Katie is the Vice President of Clinical, Quality and Engagement at Convey Health Solutions. In her role, Katie is responsible for the strategic design, execution and support of the Rewards and Incentives program, and in partnership with the business development team, build additional clinical and quality programs for future client needs. She will serve as the organization’s subject matter expert in the area of clinical quality and CMS Medicare Stars program components, including increased focus on member experience and engagement.

Katie has over 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry, with the past 12 years focused on Medicare Advantage working in both the health plan, for plans such as Humana, Aetna, and Johns Hopkins Healthcare, and the value based provider space. Her expertise has been centered around strategic design and execution of clinical quality initiatives, coding and documentation education, risk adjustment and HEDIS® operations, member experience and retention, data integrity, and process improvement.

Prior to being in healthcare, she was in the hospitality industry with an extensive background in operations management, human resources leadership and customer satisfaction. Her passion has always been centered around a people first mentality and that has continued throughout both her professional and personal life.

Katie has a master’s degree in business administration with a focus on strategic leadership from Amberton University and she is a certified professional coder (CPC).

Jenn Kerfoot

As Chief Experience Officer at FarmboxRx, Jenn Kerfoot is the head of Client and Member Experience Operations. In this role, Jenn leads the strategic planning, design, and implementation of initiatives that drive Member Satisfaction & Retention. Additionally, Jenn spearheads the Member Insights function using qualitative and advanced analytic approaches to understand the gaps in care and unmet needs of populations. Jenn has helped companies articulate and achieve success across several aspects of the healthcare space. As a military veteran, Jenn brings leadership and vision to diverse audiences, and offers a unique perspective within start-ups and high- growth stage companies. With a passion for organizational mission and values, as well as the unique competitive advantage of establishing a strong culture, Jenn works with all departments to streamline processes and programs that integrate the member experience into every aspect of the business.

Devon Lor

Nate Lucena

Nate has Master’s degrees in Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience/Aging from the College of William & Mary and Washington University in St. Louis. He is a Senior Consultant for Rex Wallace Consulting, where he specializes in helping health plans achieve their Quality Improvement performance goals through data-driven and equity-focused strategies. He began his career spending over a decade in academic research, specializing in the neural bases of schizophrenia, brain aging, Alzheimer’s Disease and human cognition. Nate has been published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology and Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, and regularly presented research findings at industry conferences. Nate shifted into a managed care career at Centene Corporation, where he began in Stars providing direct strategy and measurement assistance to health plans. During his time, he helped a contract at risk for a second strike move from 2.5 to 3.5, and helped a D-SNP contract hit 4 Stars for the first time through intense performance management, initiative development, data analysis and barrier resolution. He then built and led an Enterprise Quality Analytics and Data Science team specializing in data strategy, QI initiative outcomes studies, member-level predictive modeling of experience and clinical outcomes, and performance forecasting. Additionally, he was the key analytics lead in the development of an award-winning QI Health Equity Analysis Model, incorporating stratified reporting and advanced statistical modeling to help health plans identify health disparities and drivers in HEDIS® and CAHPS. He went on to lead Ratings Improvement Strategy, National Vendor Management, and Quality RFP/Business Development for Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace lines of business.

Dolores Karen Snyder, RN, MSN

Jessica Muratore

She has a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Psychology. She spent the first half of her career in the legal field focused on civil litigation at the largest law firm in Rochester – Harter Secrest & Emery LLP - where she became skilled in the interpretation of federal and state laws before entering managed care.

Before joining RWC, over the past 10 years Jessica worked in managed care for MVP Health Care and Centene Corporation in executive leadership positions within Quality Improvement. She has extensive experience working with the Medicare, Medicaid, Marketplace, Commercial and the Basic Health Program populations. At MVP Health Care she led quality improvement strategy and program operations for all lines of business, compliance, and NCQA health plan accreditation, achieving 4.5 Stars on all Medicare contracts for multiple years in a row.

At Centene Jessica was responsible for enterprise-wide market performance, governance, and execution for all lines of business. She worked with each health plan on contract and measure-level goal setting, performance improvement strategy and execution, member and provider engagement, and performance management when goals and KPIs were at risk of not achieving contract and enterprise 4+ Star performance.

In 2014, she also started as an adjunct professor at SUNY Brockport’s Public Administration Master’s Program teaching classes on healthcare focusing on government programs (Medicare, Medicaid), global health care systems and the Patient Protection and the Affordable Care Act.

Ian Straayer, M.B.A.

Mick Twomey

In his personal life, Mick Twomey is a husband and father of five who loves to travel and explore new things. In his role as CEO of Hyperlift, he thrives on combining thought leadership and data visualization to drive Star rating improvement for Hyperlift clients. He enjoys collaborating with clients and partners to drive continuous innovation in the solutions that Hyperlift offers.

Hyperlift was founded in 2017 with the expressed goal of changing how plans looked at Stars optimization and creating a repeatable model that could be ubiquitous across the industry. Through an action-oriented Stars Performance Scorecard, leading Stars experts, and a year-round technology-enabled approach, Hyperlift helps plans of all sizes and performance levels supercharge their Stars performance management.

Rex Wallace

Rex is a Quality Improvement expert who helps health plans achieve higher quality, operational excellence, and more meaningful engagement with all stakeholders. Prior to founding RWC, Rex was a health plan leader accountable for Star Ratings, Medicare operations, and the member experience for a multi-state, 100,000+ member plan. He led the turnaround of all nine contracts from 3.5 Stars to either 4 or 4.5 Stars through enhanced data-enabled engagement with the organization, its members, and its providers. Rex has 30 years of industry experience leading functions such as member retention, market analysis, customer service, and operational improvement.

Daniel Weaver

Daniel Weaver is the Executive Vice President of Product Operations and Stars Strategy at NationsBenefits, with nearly 25 years of experience in Operations and Star Ratings strategy. Daniel most recently served as VP, Government Quality Programs at Gateway Health, where he led the company to its first 4.5 Star Rating and an improved Medicaid NCQA Accreditation rating. In his career, Dan has overseen the development and implementation of many analytics-driven and customer-focused programs, and he advocates for continuous improvement and operational excellence philosophies for sustained success. In his new role with NationsBenefits, Daniel will drive strategic planning, facilitate execution, oversee product financial performance, manage operational performance across all products, and ensure strong internal controls are in place to enable efficiency in the growth of the business. Daniel will also help drive prospective and retrospective investigation into quality outcomes and customer engagement across the company’s distinct benefit management programs while continuing to innovate new solutions for health plan partners focused on growth and strong quality performance.