About Us
WHY TO CHOOSE US
We generate higher value healthcare by optimizing the viability and impact of our clients’ essential business relationships
T he Viability Company is a performance-focused management services and consulting company that drives business impact through hands on, results-driven out-source solutions and projects that ALIGN and EQUIP client companies and their collaborative business partners to PERFORM. We’ve served a wide array of leading healthcare companies across every major sector of the healthcare industry. The Viability team is comprised of successful operators with real-world results. The experience and relationship capital gained from our cross-sector work is a core asset in and of itself.
Each client we serve benefits from our first-hand knowledge of other sectors in the market and our ability to create alignment across traditional boundaries. The company’s history dates back to 1997 when founder, Kerry Hart, launched a company focused on bringing managed care expertise to the provider sector and on innovating collaborative business models that aligned provider and health plan incentives to deliver high quality, lower cost healthcare. In 2006, shortly after the company’s move to Nashville, the company was rebranded “The Viability Company”, to better reflect our mission.
Kerry Hart
Founder and CEO
Kerry Hart, The Viability Company’s founder and CEO, is a healthcare executive who drives performance results by combining innovative solutions, a practical management approach and market insights from over 30 years in business. His career encompasses key management positions at General Motors, Partners National Health Plans, Aetna, Concentra, and executive consulting roles.
Kerry has led multiple large-scale performance improvement initiatives in healthcare organizations as a CEO, and as an advisor to CEOs and senior management of top healthcare organizations as well as entrepreneurial start ups and early stage innovators.
Clients engage Kerry as their business architect and execution advisor to reposition healthcare organizations for higher performance and stakeholder value. Clients value the multiple perspectives Kerry provides as a result of his work across the entire healthcare spectrum as well as with the investor community.
Pat Sheridan
Principal
Pat is an operations leader with extensive record of success leading both payer- and provider-side managed care contracting initiatives. He also has strong expertise in managed care operations, developing markets and improving quality, compliance, efficiency and turnaround time. Pat’s experience includes executive roles at PatientFocus, Windsor Health Plan, Healthways, and MedSolutions (now EviCore).
Melinda Mitrovic
Principal
Melinda is an insurance industry leader with a proven record of accomplishment in delivering and maintaining multi-million-dollar solutions that obtains targeted business results. She exhibits excellent organizational skills through the analysis and simplification of complex processes. Melinda is Lean/Six Sigma certified, and has strong facilitation and coordination skills to promote top results. Melinda’s career includes ACORD, Verisk Analytics, CNA, Aetna and EXL Healthcare.
Clay Bittner
Principal
Clay brings deep managed care, payor contracting, and business development expertise to Viability’s suite of capabilities. Having significant experience in both the payor and provider side of healthcare, Clay adds a unique perspective to effectively and successfully maneuvering the health care landscape. Clay’s previous leadership roles include several large health plans where he led network management departments as well as private-equity backed provider organizations in the specialties of dialysis, urgent care, specialty infusion, anesthesia and ophthalmology, where he led managed care, business development and business operations teams.
Jeanell Austin
Principal
Jeanell is a seasoned healthcare executive with 25+ years of health plan Network Development and senior management experience with exceptional skills in managing major network transformations. Her career includes Network Management executive leadership at Centene, MVP Health Care, and Humana. In addition to her technical expertise in managed care network design, contracting, reimbursement and provider relations, Jeanell provides current and comprehensive insights into the payer perspective.
Adam Middleton
Principal
Adam has consulted with emerging businesses in leadership positions, physician practices, healthcare startup companies and hospitals with focus on management, operations, finance and strategic planning. He has extensive experience in physician compensation including contracting and structures. Through his leadership he assists hospitals and practices determine fair market compensation and compliance issues that surround employment practices. Among other projects, his key consultancy roles included: strategic business consultations, the merger of two hospital managed service organizations, the startup of physician practices, and the negotiation of hundreds of physician-hospital acquisitions. He also led strategic planning and operational teams in the post-acute care environment, physician groups and hospital service lines. Adam works with physician practices with numerous areas of operations including revenue cycle maximization through contract negotiations and revenue opportunities.