Consulting Practice Leaders
Valerie Barckhoff - Vice President
Ms. Barckhoff has over fifteen years of revenue cycle experience. She spent seven years consulting for Ernst & Young and Deloitte & Touche’s healthcare consulting firms. After leaving consulting in 2002, Ms. Barckhoff implemented a Revenue Management function for a three-hospital system in metro-Atlanta. Prior to joining QHR, Ms. Barckhoff served as the Vice President of Revenue Cycle for a large, multi-hospital system in Atlanta. During her time as Vice President, Ms. Barckhoff implemented significant change for the organization resulting in a decrease in Days in Accounts Receivable of over 20 days while improving the hospital’s overall net revenue and cash positions. She also spent two years working to improve processes related to an OIG investigation. Her unique experience in revenue cycle and compliance brings sustainable results to her clients.
Pat Cooper - Vice President
Pat Cooper currently leads 12 experienced clinical and nonclinical hospital consultants who work on projects with community hospitals nationwide. She has been with QHR since June 2003 and has a successful track record as an exceptional hospital operations senior executive, talented nursing executive, and Nurse Practitioner. She provides executive leadership and strategic project management expertise to patient throughput projects in hospitals throughout the United States. She assesses, collects and analyzes data, and provides expert recommendations for patient flow improvement in hospitals ranging from critical access to large multi-site urban hospital systems. Results-oriented and experienced in managing multiple consultant resources on large scale projects, Pat achieves critical cost savings, cycle time reduction, and revenue improvement.
John Johnston - Vice President
John Johnston is the leader of QHR’s Management and Leadership Practice, John Johnston oversees a team of consultants that delivers comprehensive strategic, operational and financial improvement solutions to hospitals of varying sizes nationwide. Specifically, John and his team offer extensive experience leading hospitals through financial turnarounds, service line development/improvement, strategic growth, physician alignment and information technology implementation. John has more than 12 years’ experience in consulting with non-profit community hospitals in the areas of strategy, operations and quality; he also has extensive experience in hospital finance.
Consulting Product Leaders
Sheila Coggins - Human Resources
Sheila Coggins is responsible for oversight of HR Client Services consulting services and education/development of hospital Human Resource professionals. With over 24 years of in-depth experience in hospital operations in both large and small facilities, she is familiar with the multiple facets of a human resources department including employee relations, compensation and benefits, performance management, Joint Commission readiness, recruitment, retention, policy and procedure development, and job description creation. In addition, Sheila has worked with hospital operational productivity, healthcare ethics and compliance, and leadership/staff development.
Howard Green - Managed Care
As an experienced managed care professional, Mr. Green leads QHR’s managed care consulting services department. He has coached and consulted with hospitals across the country on effective managed care strategies. Leveraging Mr. Green’s in-depth knowledge of managed care markets across the country, he has assisted numerous client hospitals in successfully renegotiating their managed care contracts.
Dan Hobbs - Patient Financial Services
As director of patient financial services, Mr. Hobbs conducts assessments and implements best practices in the areas of patient financial services and patient access management. He has nearly three decades of healthcare experience and has worked with hospitals of various sizes to improve cash and accounts receivable performance, reduce bad debt, reduce denials and improve the quality of front-end processes. Mr. Hobbs also conducts seminars and workshops for hospitals on a variety of financial management topics.
Jerry Miller - Revenue Cycle
As the Director of Reimbursement Audit Services at a large hospital in the south, Mr. Miller was responsible for the management of Reimbursement Audit Services, which performed audits on the Revenue Cycle, to include Patient Access, Care Management, Health Information Management, Reimbursement, and Patient Financial Services. He reviewed statistical sampling of accounts from a 5 year period for potential improper billing of zero and one day stays, observation, three day SNF, medical unlikely claims, hemodialysis, and carotid stents and was responsible for reporting both under and over payments as a result of audit findings. Mr. Miller developed and performed hospital-wide education on Revenue Cycle, Reimbursement, and Clinical Documentation, as part of a Corporate Integrity Agreement.
Sherilynn Quist - Staffing Efficiency and Effectiveness
Sherilynn Quist is a labor optimization specialist. She works with hospitals of all sizes to provide high-level, department-specific evaluations of current staffing levels, and overtime and agency utilization. She also has extensive experience in identifying and quantifying overall process improvement opportunities. Sherilynn believes that labor management should be an ongoing initiative, rather than a short-term solution. She also believes that trust, developed through education and mentoring, is the key to meeting implementation goals and ensuring long-lasting results. Sherilynn has managed the implementation of numerous business intelligence tools, she and has led and contributed to projects to improve revenue cycle, staffing and productivity and patient throughput efficiencies.
Debra Scudder - Throughput
With more than 20 years of experience in surgical services, Ms. Scudder is a senior-level healthcare executive in hospital operations. Her expertise is in surgical process improvement and developing surgical governance structure. She has worked with critical access hospitals, small community hospitals, mid-size facilities and large teaching hospitals. Ms. Scudder’s strong clinical and management background allows her to assist the hospital management build trust with the medical and clinical staff. Ms. Scudder believes that establishing trust serves as a foundation for meeting implementation goals and assuring long-lasting results.
Carla Wallace - Compliance
As a content expert for QHR’s compliance department, Carla provides education, executive leadership, and oversight to QHR’s managed hospitals, providing best practice tools to help hospital’s mitigate risk and achieve their compliance goals. Carla is a highly motivated professional with demonstrated ability to lead. She is detail oriented with extensive experience in healthcare compliance. She is known for possessing excellent communication, policy implementation, process improvement, and project management skills. She is an effective facilitator of training and educational classes for employees, physicians, peers, and senior management.
