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The Team
A dynamic team
The Viability Company team fields seasoned professionals with a wide array of healthcare business expertise.
Founded by operators turned consultants, we understand the daily operations as well as the guiding strategies.
Our Values
Integrity
Our word is our pledge; we earn the trust of clients and colleagues and are diligent to preserve and protect it.
Value
We are committed to giving clients added value by providing deeper expertise and executable advice to drive desired result.
Development
We are committed to develop client organizations and individuals.
Results
We think and act like business owners; we are driven to find high impact, systematic performance optimization opportunities that build lasting success.
Our founder
Kerry Hart
Founder & 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.
Our EXPERTS
Pat Sheridan
Partner
Pat is an operations leader with an 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).
Debra Burnham
Principal
Deb is an experienced leader with strong communication, project management, process improvement and network development/contracting expertise for both new and existing business. She is an accomplished professional with a unique blend of problem-solving and analytical abilities. Deb’s hallmark is effective management of people, processes and organizational relationships with an emphasis on customer relationship management. She is known for commitment, integrity, resourcefulness and willingness to share information that makes a positive difference to and advances corporate goals.
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
PARTNER
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.
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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.
Carl Swart, MHA, CMPE, CRCR
PRINCIPAL
Carl has over thirty years of experience within the medical services industry where he focused on developing revenue cycle expertise. Over his extensive career Carl has held leadership positions where he was responsible for strategic client development for clinically integrated networks, hospital owned practices, multi-specialty practices, and private practices. In his executive roles with ApprioHealth, Ensemble, Bon Secours Mercy Health, and HealthServe he led teams to optimize revenue cycle operations.
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Carl comes alongside healthcare providers to properly assess their revenue cycle function(s) and implement core improvements to advance organizational discipline and optimize revenue.
Carl has been a speaker at Epic’s User Group Conference (UGM) on multiple occasions as well as McKesson’s Insight Conference, Ohio HFMA and HIMMS Conferences and online presentations for HFMA.
Kirk Finchem, MBA, MPH
LEAD CONSULTANT
Leveraging analytics and planning skills to build strong, creative finance teams and functions, with deep experience in developing sustainable tools and systems for improved decision-making. Proven track record in implementing new planning and reporting systems, analyzing data for commercial value, and integrating operations, finance, and project management perspectives.
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Financial Operations
Financial Budgeting, Planning & Analyses
Developing Creative, Analytical Teams
Data Analyses & Visualization
Predictive & Descriptive Statistics
Regression Analyses
Patient & Customer Satisfaction
Operations, Enterprise & Multi-Site Budgets
New System Implementation
Excel, PowerBI, Python, SQL
