Consumer Engagement Archives - Health Management Associates

Kristan McIntosh

Kristan McIntosh specializes in behavioral health programming designed to both enhance access to community-based care and facilitate program and organizational sustainability.

She has extensive development experience, working across a number of human service sectors to fund and implement programming that responds to the needs of a wide array of vulnerable populations, including individuals with co-occurring behavioral health and chronic health conditions; children, youth, and families; and those affected by the criminal justice system and/or homelessness.

Prior to joining HMA, Kristan served as a project manager at SAE & Associates. She established a successful track record of helping secure grant funding for nonprofit behavioral health clients. A social worker by training, Kristan began her career working with children and youth diagnosed with serious emotional disturbances and their families in a clinical residential setting.

She received her bachelor’s degree from Williams College and her Master of Social Work in Social Enterprise Administration from Columbia University School of Social Work.

Kristan currently lives in New York City, and she is a three-time marathoner with a goal of running a marathon in every major city in the United States. She volunteers with a number of organizations, including Back on My Feet-NYC, an organization that uses running as an empowerment tool for individuals experiencing homelessness.

Missy Garrity

A diversified and experienced project manager and healthcare leader, Missy Garrity has helped clients, including states, health plans, and other healthcare and nonprofit organizations, succeed in a variety of projects and programs. She has successfully led large, strategic projects related to delivery system and payment reforms including new health plan start-ups, systems implementation and replacements, operational process improvements, and clinical program implementation.

Since joining HMA in 2016, Missy has supported clients on a diverse collection of complex projects. Her project portfolio includes implementation of a new Medicaid long-term services and supports (LTSS) health plan in Florida where her oversight extended to credentialing, network development, information technology (IT) systems, member eligibility, claims payments, and care management programs.

She has also led teams to successfully gain accreditation by AAAHC, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Dual Eligible Special Needs Plans (D-SNP) application approval, and contract award as a Medicaid Managed Care Plan.

Missy works closely with clients, maintaining close and careful communication to ensure a high-quality deliverable suitable for public release including a Delaware strategic planning project for the State Innovation Model (SIM) grant under CMS oversight. She works with all levels of project staff to assure controls are in place to quickly remove barriers to progress, preventing schedule slippage and keeping projects within budget.

Before joining HMA, Missy was senior director of the Enterprise Project Management Office at the Commonwealth Care Alliance, a leading health plan for members with dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid. Prior to the Commonwealth Care Alliance, she led the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts Health Services Division redesign, a two-year project for which she implemented system replacement and redesign, care management systems, operations process improvement, care management functions, and program redesign.

As an independent consultant, Missy also guided initiatives for local health plans and for state government that involved the implementation of care management systems, quality and cost trend reporting systems, all-payer claims data bases, strategic planning, and organizational redesign.

She earned master’s degree in business administration from Northeastern University, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Regis College. Missy is former chair of the Hallmark Health Patient and Family Advisory Council, a member of the Project Management Institute’s local Mass Bay Chapter, and former president of the Women in Health Care Management board of directors. She is certified as a project management professional by the Project Management Institute.

Rob Buchanan

Rob Buchanan is a strategic leader and systems thinker with 20 years of experience working to make health care and social services more accessible, equitable, and effective. He works with state agencies, hospitals, health plans, providers, and community-based organizations on projects spanning health policy and program analysis, financial and cost modeling, and quality improvement.

Rob’s expertise in organizational development includes strategic and operational planning, leadership development, stakeholder engagement and facilitation, board/management relations, operational dashboards, and business process transformation. He also has deep expertise in Medicaid policy, value-based care models, population health management, and data analytics.

Rob’s professional experience includes a focus on high-need populations, including helping clients develop measures and processes to assess health care disparities across social risk factors and health-related social needs. Rob also helped behavioral health providers assess barriers to care and improved processes to identify and triage individuals for urgent and crisis services.

Prior to joining HMA, Rob was program director for performance incentives at Mass General Brigham, Massachusetts’ largest integrated healthcare delivery system. He administered value-based financial incentives across payers.

During Rob’s tenure with the Massachusetts Medicaid program, he managed key financial components of the Commonwealth’s health reform effort. As budget director, he developed federal financing strategies and hospital payment methodologies.

Rob also served on the Board of Trustees for Cambridge Health Alliance, a safety net hospital system that serves multiple Boston-area communities. He served as chairperson of several board committees and provided board-level leadership and guidance on development of the organization’s five-year strategic plan.

Rob earned his master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Ellen Breslin

A seasoned consultant, Ellen Breslin draws upon her nearly 30 years of experience and expertise in health policy, with a commitment to payment and delivery reform and to improving outcomes for persons with disabilities.

As an independent consultant for nearly 10 years, Ellen provided extensive financing and policy expertise to an array of clients including states, health plans, and providers on major state and federal payment and delivery reforms including the Medicare-Medicaid Capitated Financial Alignment Initiative. Her portfolio of work also includes development of the financing model for a State Innovation Models (SIM) Initiative grant applicant, and creation of the state-required funds flow model for a New York organization as part of the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Program.

Previously, she spent nearly two decades of her career in health policy positions for state and federal government with a focus on helping to improve access and care for persons with disabilities. At the state level, Ellen was the first director of managed care reimbursement and analysis for MassHealth, the Massachusetts Medicaid program. At the federal level, Ellen was a principal analyst for the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, where she worked on national health care reform and wrote analytic reports and testimony for Congress.

She is the co-author of several publicly-available reports for the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA), the Massachusetts Medicaid Policy Institute (MMPI), the Massachusetts Disability Policy Consortium and the Mongan Institute for Health Policy, the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP), and Community Catalyst.

Ellen received her master’s degree in public policy from Duke University.

Ellen is a true Bostonian, with a deep love for her children, her mother, and her many siblings.

Jaimie Bern

Jaimie Hammerling Bern has more than 18 years of health policy and management experience, specializing in health reform implementation, Medicaid managed care and patient-centered medical homes. Jaimie works with states, health plans and foundations to analyze and plan for health care reform. She also supports local and national health plans with preparation for state Medicaid managed care procurements including those for dual eligibles.

Jaimie came to HMA from the Massachusetts Office of Medicaid, where she served as the project manager of the Patient-Centered Medical Home Initiative (PCMHI). She was responsible for the development and statewide implementation of PCMHI, including procurement of primary care practices, engaging public and private payers in program design and payment reform, overseeing a statewide advisory council, and working with providers to transform their practices.

Jaimie was the assistant director of Commonwealth Care at the Massachusetts Health Connector. She led the design and implementation of eligibility, enrollment and appeals policies for the new insurance program and collaborated with health plans to support their implementation Jaimie also served in leadership positions for the Massachusetts Office of Medicaid, providing operational guidance, strategic planning and quality improvement oversight for the Medicaid managed care program.

Jaimie earned her master’s degree in public health from Columbia University, master’s degree in nursing from Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, and her bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan.

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Kristan McIntosh