The Veralon Leadership Team
With decades of hands-on experience, Veralon’s directors, principals, and managers are ready to tackle any complex problem that comes your way. But we don’t just hang our hat on our professional credentials— it’s our deep commitment to helping our clients that makes us an invaluable partner.
You face a complex array of business concerns on a daily basis, and Veralon wants to work with you to tackle these head on, with a fresh perspective. Our strategic, financial, management, and clinical insights provide the support you need to implement a successful vision and strategy to move forward with confidence.
Most importantly, we value personalized service, and engage with you not as consultants, but as trusted advisors and partners dedicated to your success.
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Managing Director and CEO
Daniel M. Grauman, MBA, CPA/ABVManaging Director and CEODan has more than 35 years of experience working with healthcare clients across the US, including community and teaching hospitals, health systems, PHOs, clinically integrated networks, and health plans. His current work is focused on mergers and affiliations, clinically integrated networks and value-based payment, and on valuation.
Dan’s experience includes:
- Planning and design of clinically integrated networks, including CINs for multi-hospital health systems
- Independence assessments for community hospitals
- Evaluating and planning for mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations
- Financial feasibility studies for hospitals and healthcare services
- Developing ACOs, PHOs, risk contracts, and value-based payment arrangements
- Consultative valuation for physician-hospital business arrangements
- Valuations of physician practices, hospitals, specialty care facilities, and ambulatory care facilities
Dan founded DGA Partners (one of Veralon’s predecessor firms) after serving as a principal at the Raleigh Group (later Value Health Sciences). Before that, he directed the Chicago healthcare consulting practice, and served as a Principal in Philadelphia, for Laventhol & Horwath.
Dan is a faculty member at iProtean, which offers online courses focused on the needs of hospital and health system trustees. He frequently gives presentations for national and regional healthcare organizations on topics including affiliations and alternatives to traditional merger and acquisition, clinical integration, and valuation. Dan has published numerous articles in national publications, as well as authoring blogs for HFMA.
Dan is President of the Board of the Alumni Association for the Sloan Program in Health Services Administration at Cornell University. He has served on the boards of a non-profit retirement home and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Dan holds a CPA license (Pennsylvania) and an ABV (Accreditation in Business Valuation) from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
He earned his MBA and Sloan Certificate in Health Services Administration from Cornell University, Johnson School of Management, and a BA in Economics from Temple University.
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Director
Mark J. Dubow, MSPH, MBADirectorMark is a national expert in strategy development for healthcare organizations, with an emphasis on helping providers capitalize on emerging innovations. He has more than 35 years of healthcare consulting experience and has directed engagements for healthcare organizations throughout the nation, including health systems, community and teaching hospitals, academic medical centers, ambulatory care providers, post-acute care organizations, health plans, and physician organizations.
Mark’s work focuses primarily on strategy, mergers and alliances, alignment, and enhancing the effectiveness of clinical service lines. His experience includes:
- Determining strategy and the most appropriate model of care to apply as organization’s transition from a fee-for-service to a value-based payment environment
- Assisting hospitals and physician organizations in the formation and refinement of integrated delivery systems, including clinical integration, and establishing strategies for growth
- Establishing various alignment models
- Determining client need for and benefit of forming strategic partnerships, and evaluating potential candidates
- Enhancing service lines including cardiovascular, neuroscience, oncology, orthopedics, women’s services, and behavioral health, among other clinical services; including setting strategies to address innovation and disruption, achieve growth, pursue outreach, and establish physician alignment
- Ambulatory care and post-acute care development including strategy, defining service portfolio, site selection, and resource sizing
Previously, Mark was senior vice president at a nationally recognized healthcare consulting firm, and a leader within the planning and business advisory practice. Prior to joining that firm, Mr. Dubow was the president of another healthcare consulting firm. Before that he was a senior manager in the national healthcare consulting practice of a Big Four accounting firm, where he led the South/West Region of the firm’s Accelerated Solutions Services, and was Director, Strategic Planning Services, for the South/West Region.
Mark is a frequent speaker for organizations including the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), Healthcare Financial Management Association, and the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, among others. He has taught courses on growth and health systems of the future for the ACHE since 1999. Mark has published in books and more than 35 articles on a wide variety of topics.
Mark holds an MBA degree from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree in public health, with an emphasis on healthcare planning and policy, from UCLA, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Colgate University.
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Director
John M. Harris, MBADirectorJohn Harris combines consulting expertise with a hands-on management background. His 30 years of healthcare experience includes founding a healthcare business, running facilities and consulting to hospitals and health systems, ACOs, Clinically Integrated Networks (CINs), PHOs, IPAs, and health plans.
John’s work for clients includes:
- Advising on strategic issues and facilitating planning retreats
- Assisting with mergers, acquisitions, and affiliation strategies
- Development and optimization of ACOs and CINs
- Provider and payer initiatives to improve quality and lower cost
- Strengthening physician-hospital alignment
- Providing expert advice on healthcare business arrangements
Harris’s experience includes founding Advance Choice, Inc., the leading national service providing hospitals with emergency access to patients’ advance medical directives. He has had senior operational responsibility in healthcare facilities. John has also been a health policy fellow for the US Senate’s Finance Committee.
John is a frequent author and speaker for ACHE, HFMA, the American Association of Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems, and many other organizations, and is the editor of the recently published Healthcare Strategic Planning, 4th Edition. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA in Healthcare Management from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is president of the Wharton Healthcare Management Alumni Association.
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Director
Craig E. Holm, MBA, FACHEDirectorCraig has over 25 years of experience in directing consulting engagements for physicians and physician group practices, community hospitals, large health systems, and academic medical centers. In combination with his experience in healthcare operations, this gives him a very full understanding of the issues faced by clients.
Craig’s experience includes:
- Developing strategies for physician-hospital alignment
- Creating clinical integration strategies
- Collaborating with physicians on risk-based contracting and bundled payments
- Improving the financial and clinical performance of physician enterprises
- Developing primary care strategies for hospitals and health systems
Prior to his consulting career, Craig served as the associate director of patient care services at Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Rochester Medical Center.
An experienced speaker, Craig has presented to a wide range of regional and national healthcare organizations including the American College of Healthcare Executives, Healthcare Financial Management Association, Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development, and the Healthcare Strategy Institute.
He is the author of two books: Allies or Adversaries: Revitalizing the Medical Staff Organization, and Next Generation Physician‐Health System Partnerships, both published by Health Administration Press of the American College of Healthcare Executives. He has also written numerous articles, including a column for the Journal of Healthcare Management. His recent research has focused on re-orienting the healthcare delivery system toward primary care.
Craig holds an AB in Biological Sciences and an MBA in Hospital and Health Services Administration from Cornell University. He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
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Director
Karin Chernoff Kaplan, MBA, CVADirectorKarin is expert in healthcare valuation, and also has extensive experience in healthcare strategy, finance, and operations. She has more than 30 years of healthcare experience, combining consulting and healthcare management. She works with health systems, community and teaching hospitals, physicians and other healthcare providers.
Her experience includes:
- Conducting hundreds of fair market valuations (FMV) for physician practices and other healthcare entities including general and specialty hospitals, cancer centers, imaging centers, surgi-centers, urgent care centers, and others
- Determining FMV for standard and complex physician compensation and other business arrangements such as co-management, on-call, and professional services arrangements
- Designing and modeling physician compensation plans to align organizational and physician objectives and incentives
- Developing strategic and business plans, including financial feasibility analyses
- Preparing medical staff plans and assessing specialty-specific physician need
Before joining Veralon, Karin was Director of Regional Operations for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, where she managed primary care practices in a 250-physician network. She also served as Director of Special Projects for that health system, providing management services and infrastructure development for the initial phases of an IDS-owned primary physician network.
Her previous experience includes a role as administrator for the Division of Hematology/Oncology at New England Medical Center, where she managed an academic division with substantial research and clinical activities. Karin gained previous healthcare consulting experience with the firm of Laventhol & Horwath.
Karin is a member of the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts, from which she holds designation as a certified valuation analyst (CVA). She frequently speaks on valuation and has taught courses and given webinars on physician compensation design and valuation for AHLA, NACVA, HFMA, and MGMA. She is a national thought leader on compensation design in the context of value-based payment models and quality incentives.
She received an MBA in Health Administration from Temple University and a BS in Health Planning and Administration from Pennsylvania State University.
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Director
Michael Rovinsky, MBADirectorMichael Rovinsky is a healthcare strategy, operations, and business development consultant with more than 30 years of experience assisting community hospitals, health systems, physician groups, and ambulatory and post-acute care healthcare organizations.
His experience includes:
- Facilitating strategic planning and decision-making
- Identifying and implementing strategic partnerships
- Planning, negotiating, and implementing physician-hospital alignment strategies
- Planning and developing more than 750,000 square feet of medical office and related space for health systems and medical groups
- Creating regulatory strategy, preparing certificate of need applications, and providing expert witness testimony for healthcare projects in 10 states and the District of Columbia
Prior to joining Veralon, Michael was founder and president of Integrity Consulting Group, a healthcare strategy firm. He was also a partner with United Medical Properties, an ambulatory medical real estate company, where he planned, negotiated, and implemented multimillion-dollar deals for large healthcare systems.
Michael’s experience includes serving as Executive Director of Strategic Planning for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States, with more than 500,000 members and 30+ ambulatory care facilities in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. He planned and oversaw execution of the region’s transformational strategy resulting in unprecedented growth and profitability. He developed the annual ten-year capital plan and drove the approval process for capital projects.
He has given presentations for MGMA, the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, the Post-Acute Care Symposium, and others, and served as guest lecturer for master’s degree programs at George Washington and Georgia State Universities. He has published numerous articles and been extensively cited as a health planning expert in Atlanta newspapers and business journals, as well as industry journals.
Michael has held board member and leadership roles at the Wharton Health Care Management Alumni Association, the George West Mental Health Foundation, and the District of Columbia Statewide Health Coordinating Council.
He holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a BA in Biology and Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Principal
Richard Chasinoff, MBA, CVA, ABARPrincipalRich has more than 20 years of healthcare experience, including extensive experience in healthcare valuation, and executive leadership experience in hospital operations, business development, and planning. He has worked with community-based hospitals and health systems of all sizes, as well as teaching hospitals and for-profit health systems.
His experience includes:
- Valuation of physician practices and various physician entities, as well as hospitals, imaging centers, urgent care centers, and others
- Compensation valuation for employment, practice management arrangements, practice and equity partner, management agreements, and equipment arrangements
- Physician compensation design, including development of incentives
- Imaging improvement strategies for hospitals, including acquisition assessments
Prior to joining Veralon, Rich served as senior director for a national consulting firm specializing in healthcare valuation. He also served in executive leadership roles, including Vice-President for Clinical and Diagnostic Services, and Vice President for Planning at two not-for-profit community hospitals in the northeast.
He has had operating responsibilities for hospital programs including radiology, oncology, diagnostic cardiology, neurology and stroke, and hospitalist and intensivist programs, and was Administrative Director for a Department of Medicine.
Rich is a member of the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts, from which he holds the designation of certified valuation analyst (CVA).
He holds a MHA and MBA from the University of Minnesota and a BS in Biological Sciences from Cornell University.
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Principal
Carol Davis, FACHE, MSHAPrincipalCarol is an experienced healthcare strategist with more than 30 years of experience working with hospitals and health systems, both as a consultant and health system administrator. She has led over 250 consulting engagements for community hospitals, health systems, and academic medical centers.
Her experience includes:
- Strategic planning for community hospitals and health systems
- Service line strategy development in cardiovascular, neurosciences, oncology, and women’s health services
- Ambulatory services planning
- Clinical integration strategy involving both employed and independent physicians
- Physician-hospital alignment strategy
- Planning and facilitating board retreats
Prior to joining Veralon, Carol was the owner and principal consultant for Strategy Connections, where she assisted hospitals and health systems with developing transitional and long term strategies during the initial phases of healthcare reform. She assisted with translating broad concepts (e.g., clinical integration and accountable care) into concrete initiatives.
Previously, she was Vice-President of Strategic Services at Poudre Valley Health System in Fort Collins, CO.
Carol has presented at regional and national healthcare meetings. She holds an MSHA from the University of Colorado at Denver, and a BME from the University of Kansas.
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Principal
Robert F. Hill, Jr., FACHE, MBA/MSPrincipalRobert has over 20 years of healthcare management consulting experience, and has conducted engagements for a wide range of health care organizations, including academic medical centers, community and teaching hospitals, and physician group practices. He has particular expertise in financial analyses for highly complex projects.
Robert’s experience includes:
- Merger and affiliation planning engagements, where he takes a lead role in evaluating the financial impacts of these new relationships
- Financial analysis of physician hospital integration initiatives
- Determining resource requirements for, and financial impact of, strategic planning initiatives
- Valuations for physician practices, surgi-centers, physical therapy practices, and other healthcare entities
- Ambulatory care strategy and development
- Assessing physician compensation fair market value and contract reviews with compliance officers
- Performance improvement for the physician enterprise
- Advising attorneys general on non-profit to for-profit hospital conversions
Robert authored a chapter on the financial benefits of mergers and affiliations in Leading Your Organization Through a Merger or Acquisition, published by Health Administration Press.
Robert is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, from which he has received both the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Service Award for his commitment and service to the healthcare management profession. He is past president of the Healthcare Leadership Network of the Delaware Valley. He has been designated a Fellow by Temple University for his distinguished professional contributions, and now serves on the advisory council of the University’s Center for Healthcare Research and Management.
He holds an MBA/MS in healthcare administration and finance from Temple University and a BA in business economics and organizational behavior/management from Brown University.
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Principal
Rudd Kierstead, MBA, MPPPrincipalRudd brings 25 years of experience in a range of provider settings to his work on physician initiatives. He has focused on enterprise performance improvement, medical staff planning, financial analysis, physician alignment, compensation planning, acquisition and employment analysis, and FMV projects. Rudd has worked in academic medical centers and done extensive consulting with health system and community hospital clients.
Rudd’s experience includes:
- Compensation evaluation and design
- Valuation of entities and services
- Specification and valuation of unique arrangements with physicians
- Physician enterprise formation and evaluation
- Design and management of partnering ventures
- Balancing academic missions and cross-subsidy opportunities
He has worked extensively with physician leadership in New York medical centers, managing physician networks, practices, and departments in several academic medical centers and in different specialties.
Before joining Veralon, Rudd was a Director in the Weill Cornell Physician Network, where he recruited physicians; negotiated compensation and transition arrangements with prospective physicians; onboarded physicians; and coordinated business planning, space arrangements, and credentialing.
Prior to working at Weill Cornell, Rudd was a consultant in one of Veralon’s predecessor firms. Previously, he was Vice Chair for Administration in the Department of Psychiatry with Weill Cornell Medical College, a department with 180 paid faculty, where his responsibilities included compliance, staffing, practice, research and teaching concerns.
While at Continuum Health Partners health system, Rudd managed the centralized business planning and compensation evaluation functions in the Finance Department. Previously, at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Rudd was the administrator at an off-site dialysis center, staffed the Medical Board on ambulatory care issues, and served as special assistant to the senior vice president for clinical operations.
He holds an MBA from the University of Michigan, an MPP from the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and a BA from Wesleyan University.
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Senior Manager
Stuart J. Schaff, CVA, FHFMASenior ManagerFor more than a decade, Stu has advised non-profit and for-profit hospitals, health systems, physician organizations, and healthcare attorneys across the United States on a wide range of physician-hospital alignment, compensation, and valuation matters.
Stu’s experience includes:
- Designing physician compensation models for practices ranging from one physician to large, multispecialty groups
- Appraising the fair market value of hospital-physician compensation arrangements
- Conducting valuations for healthcare businesses including medical practices and ambulatory surgery centers
- Assessing performance of physician enterprises and developing solutions to reduce subsidies
- Creating procedures and tools to streamline clients’ physician contracting process
- Facilitating the formation of clinically integrated networks, accountable care organizations, and ambulatory care networks
- Developing analyses for business plans, feasibility studies, operational assessments, transactions, and litigation-related matters
Stu came to Veralon after several years with two national healthcare consulting firms. Previously, he led implementation of financial planning and budgeting software for hospitals and health systems.
Stu frequently presents and publishes on healthcare finance and physician alignment topics. He received a B.S. in Finance from the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds the certified valuation analyst (CVA) designation from the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts and is a Fellow of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (FHFMA).
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Manager
Danielle Bangs, MHA, CVAManagerDanielle advises and supports healthcare organizations on merger and affiliation initiatives, and on a wide range of physician alignment, valuation, and financial and business planning matters. She has worked with non-profit and for-profit health systems, community hospitals, academic medical centers, pediatric hospitals, ACOs, CINs, and PHOs.
Her experience includes:
- Due diligence and other support of contemplated mergers, affiliations, and other transactions, particularly with respect to robust financial due diligence studies
- Healthcare business valuations, including valuation of urgent care companies, ambulatory surgery centers, post-acute care organizations, senior living facilities, ACOs, and physician practices
- Business and financial planning for hospitals and health systems, as well as for CINs, PHOs, and ACOs
- Strategic and business planning for established PHOs and CINs, as well as development of new ones
- Physician alignment efforts, including primary care network development strategies, selection of optimal alignment models, and evaluation of physician practices in support of transactions under consideration
- Physician compensation design, with a particular focus on the incorporation of performance metrics and alignment with organizational objectives
- Compensation fair market value analyses, including those for employment arrangements, medical directorships, and on-call arrangements
Prior to joining Veralon, Danielle worked with organizations in the government and non-profit sector on projects related to policy and planning. She worked with then-New York City Councilmember Gale Brewer. Additionally, Danielle has worked in the education field, having taught both in the United States and abroad.
Danielle is a member of the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts, from which she holds designation as a certified valuation analyst (CVA). She holds a Master of Health Administration from the Sloan Program in Health Administration at Cornell University, and a BS in Policy Analysis and Management, also from Cornell University.
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Manager
Carole Graham, RN, MBAManagerCarole Graham applies both her nursing background and data analysis skills in helping health services organizations improve clinical care management and operations. She has a broad perspective on these subjects, having worked in operations on both the provider and payer sides of managed care.
Carole’s experience includes:
- Developing and analyzing RVU and AWP-based fee schedules
- Acting as liaison between providers and payers on fee matters
- Reviewing and advising on contract language related to physician fees
- Serving as a third party in measuring performance and determining incentive payments actually received by physicians under a co-management agreement incentive plan
- Identifying programs needed to improve community health care and guiding clients in developing and implementing those programs
- Advising clients on medical management program development and implementation
Before joining Veralon, Carole developed medical management programs covering over 200,000 risk lives, as Vice President of the Allegheny Health, Education, and Research Foundation. She also managed quality improvement and claims analysis for Keystone Health Plan East.
Carole holds an MBA in Health Administration from Temple University and a BS in Nursing from West Chester University.
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Manager
Brian Hackman, MBA, MSIS, ASAManagerBrian has more than 10 years of healthcare consulting experience, with a focus on financial analysis and valuation advisory services. His clients have included community hospitals, health systems, academic medical centers, and large medical practices, in the western US as well as other states.
His experience includes:
- Business valuations for mergers and acquisitions, including physician practices, hospitals and health systems, independent practice associations, ambulatory surgery centers, imaging centers, and group purchasing associations
- Physician compensation fair market value assessments for on-call, medical directorship, hospital coverage, and service line co-management arrangements
- Physician compensation redesigns
- Development of financial models for business plans, feasibility studies, and strategic initiatives
- Financial and operational performance evaluations for both private and employed office- and hospital-based physician services
- Black box analyses
Prior to joining Veralon, Brian was a manager at a major healthcare management consulting firm, where he led the financial analysis for a wide range of engagements.
Brian also previously consulted with a national operator of government health and human services programs, where he participated in the development and implementation of state Medicaid programs in the mid-western and western United States. These initiatives also included updating or revising Medicaid fee-for-service rate setting methodologies.
Brian is an Accredited Senior Appraiser of the American Society of Appraisers.
He holds a BA from Colby College and an MBA in Finance and Health Sector Management and MS in Information Systems from Boston University.
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Manager
William Hamilton, MBA, CVAManagerWill is an experienced healthcare valuation consultant, having worked with non-profit and for-profit hospitals and health systems, healthcare attorneys, and a wide variety of other healthcare organizations across the United States.
Will’s experience includes:
- Conducting valuations of healthcare businesses including general acute care hospitals, specialty inpatient facilities, medical practices, surgery, imaging, dialysis, and cancer centers, home health/hospice, long-term care, pharmacies, ACOs, and healthcare information technology companies
- Appraising the fair market value of hospital-physician compensation arrangements and developing physician compensation models
- Assessing various service arrangements including MSAs and other management contracts, leasing, and shared services arrangements
- Performing intangible asset valuations including trademarks/trade names, covenants-not-to-compete, certificates of need, intellectual property, rights of first refusal and/or exclusive negotiation, and software
- Performing valuations of other various financial instruments such as options, warrants, convertible debt, forgiveness clauses, loan guarantees, and contingent liabilities
- Assisting clients with the deal-making process by developing assessments and creating analyses to represent multiple deal scenarios
- Providing a wide variety of litigation support services involving business ownership interests, lost profits, and lost compensation analyses for both plaintiffs and defendants
Will joined Veralon Partners after nine years of valuation experience, the majority of which was in healthcare.
Will is a certified valuation analyst (CVA) of the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts (NACVA), and was recognized as one of NACVA’s 40 Under 40 valuation professional honorees in 2017. He has published several articles in Becker’s, HFMA and Business Valuation Resources, and presented at meetings and webinars for national and regional organizations.
Will holds an MBA from the University of Arizona, and a BA from Washington & Lee University.
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Manager
Meredith C. Inniger, MHAManagerMeredith brings 10 years of experience in both healthcare consulting and healthcare operations to the development of focused and actionable strategies for Veralon clients. She advises many types of healthcare organizations nationally, including academic medical centers, large community health systems, and independent hospitals.
Her experience includes:
- Strategic planning engagements, including clinical program and ambulatory strategic planning, with an emphasis on population health strategies
- Mergers and affiliations, notably independence assessments, potential partner identification, facilitation of partnership decisions, and post-integration planning
- Physician strategies, particularly physician-hospital alignment models
- Clinically Integrated Network (CIN) feasibility and development planning
- Assessment of organizational governance strategy, structure, and operations
Prior to joining Veralon, Meredith gained operations and strategy experience at OhioHealth, where she managed a system-wide imaging services team and facilitated the integration of five urgent care facilities, and in previous operational roles at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
She is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and she currently serves on the board for the Philadelphia chapter. Meredith was also the recipient of ACHE’s Early Career Healthcare Executive Award in 2017.
Meredith frequently publishes in the field, including a recent cover story for Healthcare Financial Management. She holds an MHA and a BS with honors, from The Ohio State University.
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Manager
Molly Johnson, MHSAManagerMolly has more than 10 years of experience in the healthcare field. She advises health care organizations on planning and physician engagement, physician hospital alignment, and valuation assessments.
Her client experience includes:
- Creating physician-hospital alignment strategies
- Facilitating PHO formation and development, and developing PHO business plans
- Developing physician compensation design and determining fair market value assessment
- Developing ACOs and related financial assessments to be used in valuations
- Valuing complex business arrangements involving IPAs, clinically integrated networks where physician buy-in is desired, and management service organizations
- Assessments of physician practices across a broad range of specialties
Before joining Veralon, Molly managed clinical research studies at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon. Prior to that, Molly assisted in developing a quality measurement system for physicians and conducted a service excellence study of physician practices at the medical group of Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vermont.
Molly has authored several articles in national publications. She has spoken at a number of regional health care organization events. She holds a Master of Health Services Administration (MHSA) from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, and a BA from Dartmouth College.
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Manager
Sean Looby, MHAManagerSean assists health care organizations with strategy, financial planning, and mergers and acquisition transactions, as well as physician-hospital alignment arrangements. He has worked with academic medical centers, community hospitals, health systems, post-acute care providers, and health plans.
His experience includes:
- Feasibility studies for new hospitals, hospital expansions, and facility joint-ventures
- Financial projections for hospital acquisitions and transaction due diligence
- Due diligence related to contemplated mergers and affiliation transactions
- Strategic and affiliation planning for healthcare organizations including post-acute providers
- Development and support of physician-hospital alignment efforts, including physician employment, professional services agreements, co-management arrangements, call coverage arrangements, as well as ACOs and CINs
- Physician practice acquisition support, including practice assessments, business valuations, physician compensation design, and other transaction support
- Clinically Integrated Network (CIN) feasibility and development planning
Before joining Veralon, Sean supported efforts related to operational improvement, network development, and strategic planning in the Business Development department of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He also interned in nursing administration at a rehabilitation hospital, where he assisted with pursuit of Magnet designation and a feasibility study for a respite care program. Sean has several years of experience in financial services operations.
Sean holds an MHA from the Sloan Program at Cornell University, and a BS in Business Administration from the University of Delaware.
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Manager
Denise Palencik, CVAManagerDenise has 10 years of experience working with academic medical centers, health systems, community hospitals, and health plans on valuations, physician compensation planning, and projects requiring in-depth financial planning.
Denise’s experience includes:
- Business valuations to support acquisitions of healthcare entities including physician practices, imaging centers, ambulatory surgery centers, and hospitals
- Equity valuations for joint venture arrangements and new partner buy-ins
- Physician compensation FMV opinions for a variety of positions, including clinical employment, medical directorships, and on-call arrangements
- Valuation of specific intangible assets, including non-compete agreements and trade names
- Assisting clients with the development of business arrangements between hospitals and physician groups, and the subsequent FMV opinions
- Physician compensation planning and design
- Strategic decisions on hospital expansion or relocation, based on intensive financial analysis
- Specialized financial analysis projects, including black box analyses, Medicare Physician Fee Schedule analyses, and under arrangements
- Appraisal review
Before joining Veralon, Denise worked as a Grant Accountant at West Virginia University and a Patient Services Representative at the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center.
Denise is a member of the National Association of Certified Valuators and Analysts, from which she holds designation as a certified valuation analyst (CVA). She has co-authored publications on business valuations in healthcare and has led a NACVA webinar on the fundamentals of healthcare valuation.
She earned a BS degree in Finance, with minors in Economics and History, from the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University – University Park.
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Manager
Jessica E. Stack, MBAManagerJessica advises Veralon’s clients on a wide range of physician-hospital alignment, compensation, financial planning, and valuation matters. She has worked with non-profit and for-profit hospitals, health systems, physician organizations, and healthcare attorneys across the United States.
Jessica’s experience includes:
- Conducting valuations for healthcare businesses including medical practices, ambulatory surgery centers, hospitals, health systems, ACOs, and start-up entities
- Appraising the fair market value of hospital-physician compensation arrangements and developing physician compensation models
- Assisting clients with the deal-making process by developing practice assessments and creating analyses to represent multiple deal scenarios
- Assessing various service arrangements including MSAs and physician-lease arrangements
- Performing intangible asset valuations and purchase price allocations
- Developing analyses for strategic financial and capital planning, financial feasibility studies, transactions, and litigation-related matters
Jessica has more than nine years of business valuation experience, including providing advisory services to healthcare providers nationwide.
In addition to her healthcare valuation experience, Jessica has managed valuations of AIG’s central region entities located in the Middle East and Africa and provided services to organizations in a variety of industries for M&A planning and reporting, ASC 805 purchase price allocations, ESOPs, strategic business and financial planning, start-up venture feasibility, and tax and estate planning.
She holds an MBA from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Gordon E. Crosby, Jr. MBA Program, and a Graduate Certificate of Non-Profit Management from the University of Missouri-Columbia’s Truman School of Public Policy. Jessica holds BA and BFA degrees from Stephens College.
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Manager
Scott Stuecher, MHAManagerScott has 10 years of healthcare experience and has worked with community health systems, independent hospitals, and academic medical centers across the country, as well as broad hospital networks. He often manages large, complex strategic planning and affiliation planning engagements for Veralon, including the financial aspects of these projects.
Scott’s recent experience has included:
- Comprehensive strategic plans for numerous community hospitals
- Strategic plans for multi-hospital systems, including one for a western system that owns a health insurance company
- A feasibility study for developing a statewide healthcare network in the southeast United States; his project role included facilitating development of a clinical services portfolio and making volume projections for the network and the state
- Service-line planning for hospital systems, including development of integrated service networks across hospitals
- Independence assessments for community hospitals, and evaluation of potential partners
Prior to joining Veralon, Scott was a graduate intern for Health Management Associates, a consulting firm specializing in health and human services policy, where he assessed state Medicaid programs and conducted research in health economics.
Scott has spoken at healthcare leadership conferences. He holds a Master of Health Administration and a BS in Economics from Ohio State University.
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Manager
Laura M. ZacchignaManagerLaura focuses on strategic planning and affiliation planning engagements for Veralon clients. She has worked across the country with academic medical centers, community hospitals and health systems, clinically integrated networks (CINs), and physician groups.
Laura’s experience includes:
- Organization-wide strategic planning, with a focus on plans to address value-based care delivery, population health management, and network growth
- Ambulatory care planning, key elements of which include network design, service configuration, and physician alignment strategies
- Demand forecasting and financial feasibility studies to support facility planning efforts and identify clinical program-specific growth opportunities
- Partnership strategy for independent organizations, including independence assessments, partner evaluation and selection, and affiliation structure identification
- Affiliation planning for large organizations, including partner identification, RFP response development, regulatory review process support, and post-affiliation integration
Prior to joining Veralon, Laura worked with a large independent practice association (IPA) and accountable care organization (ACO) in Buffalo, New York where she participated in disease management and patient‐centered medical home pilot projects and assisted in the evaluation of performance-based contracts with local insurance companies.
Laura holds a BA in Public Health Studies with concentrations in Health Policy and Management and Natural Sciences from Johns Hopkins University.
