Dr. Alcantara is originally from Dominican Republic, where he graduated from INTEC. He completed his internal medicine training at Rochester General Hospital, Rochester NY and continued his career as hospitalist in 2012, where he continues clinical practice in addition to his role as Medical Director for clinical decision support and physician builders, as well as chair of the Inpatient Advisory Committee for Health Informatics department. He became an associate physician advisor for Rochester Regional Health in 2015, with special interest in the integration of Electronic Health Record and IT solutions for the PAd program, as well as the concurrent level of care determinations, specially through the peer to peer discussion process.

Dr. Anderson has practiced as a Hospitalist for over 10 years with Intermountain Healthcare. He currently serves as the Chief of Medicine and the Co-Lead of the Hospitalist Group at McKay-Dee Hospital, along with serving as the Associate Medical Director of Hospitalists for Logan, Layton, and McKay-Dee Hospitals in Utah. He has worked as a Physician Advisor for Intermountain Healthcare, a 23 hospital healthcare system in Utah and Southern Idaho, for over 6 years. He was the second physician advisor hired to the Intermountain Physician Advisor Service, which started over 7 years ago and has grown to a program of 26 physicians. His experience in that role has included utilization review, physician education, and denial and appeals management, which is his primary focus for the last 2 years. He has served as a panel moderator and a panel member at previous World Congress Physician Advisor Summits.

Dr. Ansari is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Loyola University Medical Center and is the Associate Chief Medical Officer for Clinical Optimization and Revenue Integrity. He graduated from Midwestern University and completed his residency training at Loyola University Medical Center. He is a practicing hospitalist and palliative care physician and is board certified in both palliative care and hospital medicine. His responsibilities include oversight of the medical center’s care management, utilization review, and clinical documentation improvement programs as well as serving as medical director of the observation unit. He is also involved with the development of an integrated palliative care program for the health system.

Dr. Bansal did his Internal Medicine residency at Good Samaritan Hospital (Johns Hopkins University), Baltimore and started his career as hospitalist in 2012. He continues to practice as hospitalist and also serves as Director of Quality for Rochester General Hospitalist Group, Rochester, NY. He has championed several quality improvement initiatives at Rochester General Hospital over the past few years and has received acknowledgment from the Society of Hospital Medicine as a Fellow in Hospital Medicine. Also he is a fellow of American College of Physicians & American College of Chest Physicians. He has been working as Physician Advisor at Rochester Regional Health for last 3 years and is handling level of care determination, clinical documentation improvement and denial management.

Alex Bardakh, MPP, PLC, is the Director of Public Policy and Advocacy for AMDA – The Society. Mr. Bardakh works for the Society’s extensive Public Policy agenda through Advocacy in Congress and numerous Federal Agencies. A graduate from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in Political Science/Psychology and Master’s Degree in Public and Legal Policy, Mr. Bardakh has extensive experience in health policy with a specific focus on areas such as payment models and quality of care initiatives. He has been a recognized national speaker on healthcare policy and has spoken at national conferences throughout the country.

Family Nurse Practitioner, graduated with Master of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Currently working as the Lead NP in the observation unit at Holy Cross Hospital for the last two years and prior to that worked at Washington Adventist Hospital.

Zulma M. Berríos, M.D., MBA, CPE, serves as Physician Advisor to Care Coordination and Utilization Review at West Kendall Baptist Hospital. In addition to her Physician Advisor role, she supports the medical staff in guiding performance improvement efforts, achieving quality and utilization review goal and serves as Physician Executive in the Senior Executive Group for the hospital. She is a Board-certified Obstetrician & Gynecologist who began her career as a physician in the Air Force, attaining the rank of Major and was recognized with the Air Force Commendation Medal. She has held several medical staff leadership positions including membership on the System Wide Pharmacy & Therapeutics committee and Medical Executive committees, Chair of the Credentials Committee, Chair of Peer Review and Chief of Ob/Gyn, among other duties. She serves as instructor at the Patient Safety Simulation Lab.

Dr. Berríos earned a healthcare MBA from FIU, is a Board Certified Physician Executive, and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt.

Board-certified Internist with a history of 20 years of private practice in a traditional Internal Medicine practice. After leaving private practice I started a large hospital employed Hospitalist program and was the Director for 15 years. While I was Director I started a Physician Advisor program for Utilization and Clinical Documentation improvement programs. Most recently over the last 2 years I have stepped back from clinical practice and serve as Medical Director of Utilization Management and Quality Improvement at Tower Health and Director of Utilization Management at our UPMC/Tower Health joint venture.

Rachel Cyrus, MD, FHM is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicine where she has been the clinical practice director since 2012. At the division level she has been involved in faculty development, practice structure, and physician engagement. At the hospital level, she has served as a unit medical director on a medicine/cardiology unit since 2010 and co-leads daily structured interdisciplinary rounds. Her unit has developed a reputation for exceptionally interactive, efficient and collaborative interdisciplinary rounds for a very complex patient population.

Dr. David B. Goldner is the Medical Director of Utilization Management and Appeals at the Lehigh Valley Health Network since 2016. He began as a Physician Advisor in 2012. He attended medical school at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and completed a fellowship at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Dr. Goldner is Board certified in Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular Disease.

Jessica L. Gustafson and Abby Pendleton are founding shareholders with the health care law firm of The Health Law Partners, P.C. The firm represents hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers and suppliers with respect to their health care legal needs. Ms. Gustafson and Ms. Pendleton co-lead the firm’s Recovery Audit (RAC) and Medicare appeals practice group, and specialize in a number of areas, including: Medicare, Medicaid and other payor audit defense and appeals, health care investigations, health care regulatory matters, compliance, HIPAA privacy & security compliance matters, overpayment refunds, reimbursement and contracting matters, and payor de-participation matters. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

Dr. Kanaparthy is originally from India where he graduated from Guntur Medical College. He has completed his Internal Medicine training at Cook County Hospital, Chicago and began his hospitalist career in 2007 at Rochester General Hospital, Rochester, NY. He continues to practice as a hospitalist and had previously served as a Director for the Medical Admission and Transition unit which is a “step up and step down unit.� In this role he has overseen significant improvements in patient throughput with reduction in wait times for patients identified to be in need of a critical care bed. He has championed several quality improvement initiatives at RGH over the past decade and has received acknowledgement from the Society of Hospital Medicine as a Fellow in Hospital Medicine. In 2014, he took up the challenge as a Physician Advisor where he played a key role in building the program that currently has 12 physician FTE’s and over 30 RN FTE’s.. He is currently serving as the Associate CMO for the Physician Advisor Program at Rochester Regional Health which oversees the domains of CDI, Denials & Appeals, concurrent medical necessity determination, throughput and Transfer Center.

Dr. Edward Kersh is the former Chief of Cardiology at St. Luke's Hospital, San Francisco, and is a Clinical Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

Dr. Kersh was born in New York and attended the State University of New York. He moved to San Francisco in 1972 to complete his training in cardiology, and then worked at San Francisco General Hospital until 1980, when he joined the staff of California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC), where he has served as Chief of Echocardiography and Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation. In 2001, he was appointed Chief of Cardiology at St. Luke's Hospital, which is affiliated with CPMC.

Dr. Kersh is an active teacher of cardiology fellows and medical students and has been honored with the Kaiser Teaching Award as volunteer teacher of the year at UCSF, the AOA Gold Headed Cane Award and Teacher of the Year Award at CPMC. He is board-certified in internal medicine, cardiology, and echocardiography.

Dr. Kersh retired from clinical practice and became Medical Director for Telehealth at Sutter Health in 2015. He now is a medical consultant for several biotechnology companies. He is an active lecturer and has special clinical interest in the care of patients with heart failure and the problem of 30 day readmissions

Dr. Kersh has published several articles featured in leading medical journals.

He has been recognized by his peers by election to Best Doctors in America.

Dr. Lee is the Ascension Medical Group Wisconsin Medical Director for Quality and Safety, Hospital Based Care. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and completed his residency in internal medicine at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He also received an MPH in Health Care Management at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Board Certified in Internal Medicine, he practices as a hospitalist in southeastern Wisconsin. He serves or has served on several hospital committees with focus on heart failure readmissions, sepsis, and various quality committees, medical education. He also volunteers as a preceptor for the Clinical Apprenticeship Course for the Medical College of Wisconsin and is on faculty as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine.

Dr. Lee is the Chair of the Hospitalist Committee for the American College of Physicians Wisconsin Chapter and a Board member of the Wisconsin Medical Society. He was recently elected as an American Medical Association Alternate Delegate representing the Wisconsin Medical Society.

Deeraj is the Medical Director of Physician Advisor program at Unity Hospital/Rochester Regional Health in Rochester, New York. He is an Academic Hospitalist and also serves as the Chair for Utilization Management Committee. Deeraj completed his Internal Medicine residency at Rochester Regional Health. Deeraj graduated with a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester, New York.

Abby Pendleton and Jessica L. Gustafson are founding shareholders with the health care law firm of The Health Law Partners, P.C. The firm represents hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers and suppliers with respect to their health care legal needs. Ms. Pendleton and Ms. Gustafson co-lead the firm’s Recovery Audit (RAC) and Medicare appeals practice group, and specialize in a number of areas, including: Medicare, Medicaid and other payor audit defense and appeals, health care investigations, health care regulatory matters, compliance, HIPAA privacy & security compliance matters, overpayment refunds, reimbursement and contracting matters, and payor de-participation matters. They can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].

As the Senior Medical Director for Population Health at Mount Sinai Health System, Dr. Rahim is responsible for physician engagement of the 3000 physicians within the Mount Sinai Clinically Integrated Network (CIN) on key quality, processes and outcomes, and efficiency and cost benchmarks. He also has a leadership role in utilization management and cost control programs for Mount Sinai’s value-based contracts, including their 45,000+ MSSP ACO.

Dr. Rahim has over 15 years of healthcare industry leadership experience at innovative companies including as Vice President of Quality Improvement for Lumeris, a population health health and analytics company; a Group Vice President of Quality Improvement and Innovation at Healthgrades, where he currently serves on a Quality Advisory Board (6 members); and a Director at Sg2, a health care intelligence, analytics, and services company for many hospitals and health systems throughout the country.

Dr. Rahim has a B.A. in Economics from Duke University, M.D. from the University of North Carolina, and M.B.A. from Emory University. He completed his internal medicine residency at Yale University and Northwestern University and is an actively practicing hospitalist at the Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Rahim delivered many presentations at national conferences and authored publications on topics including quality outcomes and improvement, value-driven healthcare, and consumerism and the business of medicine.

Dr. Safaee currently serves as Medical director of Intermountain McKay-Dee hospital. Previously he served as the System Physician Advisor for Intermountain Healthcare from 2010 to 2016. He is currently Board member of the National Association of Physician Advisors (NAPA).

Dr. Safaee graduated from National University, Tehran Iran and completed his residence training in Internal Medicine at Pinnacle Health, in their affiliation with Pennsylvania State University. During this time, Dr. Safaee served as the Chief Resident.

Dr. Yasser Said has six years experience in UM, Appeals and Denials, Care Management, and CDI. He founded and chaired the Dupage Medical Group Hospitalist program, during which he also served as Physician Advisor for Advocate Good Samaritan hospital. He then co-founded the Observation unit at Christ Medical Center. Dr. Said currently serves as the Physician Advisor for Christ Medical Center, as well as the Physician Advisor and Director of Care Management for Advocate Children's Hospital. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha and is Board Certified in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. Dr. Said has a special interest in international medicine and has volunteered his medical services in six countries.

Dr. Mohammad Shaheed is currently Medical Director, Physician Advisor for Rochester General and Eastern Region hospitals at Rochester Regional Health System, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester, UM Committee member, and senior Hospitalist Attending at the Rochester General Hospital all in Rochester, NY.

Dr. Shaheed earned his medical degree at Kabul Medical University and continued his training and chief Residency at Lincoln Medical Center, Weil Medical College at Cornell University. His professional interests include utilization management, efficiency of care, provider communication and education, process improvement for TIA/Stroke patients, leading implementation of EDRS at RGH, and training new Physician Advisors. His professional memberships include Diplomat of ABQUARP, Senior Fellow of Hospital Medicine, and ACP Physician Advisor.

Blaine Stringer, MSN, RN, CEN, NE-BC, began his nursing career in 1995 after graduating with his BSN from Wright State University in Dayton, OH. He worked as clinical nurse in critical care from 1995-1998. In 1998, Blaine began working in the Emergency Department (ED) at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, MI where he was introduced to nursing leadership and shared governance. Blaine advanced his leadership career path in 2003 by becoming an assistant nurse manager in the ED. In the years to follow, he has held roles of nurse manager of the ED, and trauma coordinator for two major trauma centers in the city of Chicago. In 2009, Blaine joined the Rush University Medical Center (RUMC) team as the assistant unit director (AUD) of emergency services. While in the AUD position at RUMC, he was able to complete his MSN in 2016 at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL. In 2017, Blaine became the UD, unit director, the Adult Observation unit at Rush University Medical Center. In this role, Blaine was instrumental in the opening of the 23 bed Adult Observation Unit. Through his leadership he has provided oversight of staff development, proactively impacted the organization’s length of stay, began protocol creation, and overall process improvement of the Adult Observation Unit. Some accomplishments to highlight include leading the medicine/oncology/cardiology department with the highest unit engagement scores and being selected for the American Organization of Nurse Executive’s Fellowship with his project to implement a nurse driven protocol for evaluating the need for physical and occupational therapies in the observation patient population.

Dr. Tyo is an Assistant Professor of both Internal and Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences Systems. On staff for over a decade, she has been the Residency Program Director for the combined IM/EM training program for the last 8 years facilitating the education of resident physicians throughout the institution through work in the Emergency Department and Inpatient hospital wards. More recently, she has become the physician champion and medical director for the observation services platform for UI Health. Having initiated the observation unit pilot in the spring of 2014, she has successfully demonstrated the merit of a targeted observation unit culminating in the opening of a new Clinical Decision Unit in February 2016. Her success in that work has earned her a place as a physician advisor for the hospital leveraging her understanding of whole hospital patient flow dynamics from the unique perspective of a dual-boarded physician.

Amit Wadhwa is a board certified Emergency Physician who currently serves as the Medical Director for Utilization at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring Maryland. Prior to serving as Holy Cross Hospital's Medical director for Utilization he served as the assistant medical director of a 50,000 visit ED just outside of Washington D.C where he also served as the medical director for the Clinical decision Unit. He has served as a consultant to numerous hospitals to help optimize observation unit performance and has also lectured at the national level regarding Observation Medicine best practices. In addition to his experience in clinical operations, he has also served as a Consultant for the Delmarva foundation (Maryland's QIO) and has been a Physician accreditor for the Maryland institute of Emergency Medical Services Primary Stroke certification program. He has previously served as the medical director for the Washington D.C's Department of Fire and Emergency Medical services and has held faculty appointments in Emergency Medicine at both the George Washington and Howard University schools of Medicine. He currently practices Emergency Medicine at Fort Belvoir Hospital in Virginia and sits on the Medical Board for Oak view rehabilitation in Maryland.