ACDIS Advisory Board Biographies
ACDIS advisory board Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
ACDIS advisory board qualifications, responsibilities
Nomination and elections process
Cheryl Ericson MS, RN
Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)
Manager of Clinical Documentation Integrity
Charleston, SC
Cheryl Ericson MS, RN, joined the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC in May 2008 as the Manager of Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI). In November of 2009 she also assumed the role of manager of Utilization Review (UR). In January 2011, the core measures abstracting staff joined the CDI department. She was the recipient of a Pillar Award as the “Finance Leader of the Quarter” during her first year at MUSC for her work in reorganizing the CDI department. Ericson holds a B. S. in Health and Human Development and M. S. in Health Education from Penn State and became a registered nurse in 1998. She has an extensive background in adult education, data analysis, healthcare revenue cycle, and CMS guidelines.
Ericson was a member of the 2010 American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) CDI work group. She contributed to the development of the CDI tool kit and co-authored the AHIMA 2010 CDI practice brief. She was a panel member at the 2010 AHIMA coding conference regarding her contributions to the 2010 AHIMA CDI practice brief. Prior to joining the board, Ericson served on the ACDIS 2010 CDI workgroup and she was a presenter at the 2010 National ACDIS conference in Chicago sharing her work in the area of mortality reviews.
Elected to board in 2011; serving through end of 2013
Robert S. Gold, MD
CEO
DCBA, Inc.
Atlanta, Georgia
DCBAInc@cs.com
Robert has more than 40 years of experience as a physician, medical director and consultant. A graduate of Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia, he trained in General Surgery in the U.S. Navy where he spent his professional career as a practicing surgeon. Since leaving the service, he has worked as a consultant in the fields of Managed Care Medicine, Locum Tenens, Home Health, Hospital accreditation and licensure and, most notably over the past 15 years, in education of physicians, nurses, and HIM professionals regarding documentation, coding and billing accuracy (DCBA) for healthcare services.
Robert is known nationally for his education regarding the clinical orientation of coding in AHIMA teleconferences and at the National Conferences on aspects of clinical coding. He has spoken at National and State level HFMA and HCCA meetings on the participation of medical staff in programs of documentation improvement. His monthly articles in HCPro publications have enjoyed success with all who read them. His contributions of Clinically Speaking articles in Briefings on Coding Compliance Strategies have been valuable to coding professionals and his A Minute for the Medical Staff articles in Medical Records Briefing have demonstrated value to the documentation practices of medical staff members.
Robert is a co-founder of DCBA, Inc, a consulting company that provides physician to physician programs in clinical documentation improvement for the purposes of properly reflecting disease processes in inpatient and outpatient medical records so that proper and accurate code sets can be applied. Several of their clients have already been nationally celebrated for measures of quality that are calculated from MedPar data.
Gold was re-elected to the advisory board in January 2011 after completing a three-year term of service from October 2007 through December 2010.
Elected to board in 2011; serving through end of 2013
James S. Kennedy, MD, CCS
Managing Director
FTI Healthcare
Brentwood, TN
Kennedy is managing director in the FTI Healthcare group of FTI's Corporate Finance practice based in Brentwood, TN, and Atlanta, GA. Kennedy's experience includes the private practice of medicine along with successful, entrepreneurial, healthcare-related business startups in the public and private sector. His expertise includes physician and hospital leadership, healthcare systems improvement, healthcare documentation and coding compliance, and government relations.
Kennedy regularly educates physicians and hospital staffs on these topics, promoting physician data quality, the facilitation of outcomes measurement and physician re-credentialing, reductions in payment denials, and averting legal and compliance issues for healthcare entities. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (licensed in Tennessee) and is active in the HFMA and AHIMA, among other organizations.
His more recent contributions to CDI include a bimonthly supplement to HCPro, Inc.’s Medical Record Briefings entitled “Minute for the Medical Staff” discussing CDI issues, co-authorship of the ACDIS Physician Query Handbook published in 2009, service as an Advisory Board Member for HCPro’s Briefings on Coding Compliance, and co-authorship of AHIMA’s textbook, Severity-Adjusted DRGs, an MS-DRG Primer. Kennedy participates in audio seminars on CDI principles and regularly speaks with physician groups on CDI principles.
Elected to board in 2010; serving through end of 2012
Glenn Krauss, RHIA, CCS, CCS-P, CPUR, FCS, PCS, CCDS, C-CDI
Independent Revenue Cycle Consultant
Madison, WI
Krauss has more than 15 years experience in the healthcare industry as a consultant and has held various staff positions in numerous healthcare systems. His business background and experience as a practicing coder and as a consultant in DRGs, ICD-9-CM, chargemasters, billing, APCs and CPT-4 coding enable him to effectively combine a working knowledge of hospital management with the importance of a functioning and effective HIM department. Krauss also has extensive experience in teaching physiology, surgical procedures, and the rationale of therapeutic treatments with ICD-9 and CPT coding. His ability to help others conceptualize such complex medical and billing issues has proved successful in both quality issues as well as reimbursement.
Krauss has worked as a clinical coding specialist at a level I trauma hospital, as a consultant providing coder, case manager and physician integrated education, and as director of HIM at a multi-hospital system where he trained clinical coordinators and case managers in DRG methodology, supporting medical record documentation and appropriate physician interface techniques. Krauss was the Coding Technical Advisor for Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s in Boston, serving as advisor to 60 full-time inpatient and outpatient coders.
Krauss earned his Health Information Management Certificate from the University of Washington in Seattle and has a BBA in Management with a Minor in Marketing from Hofstra University. He is a member of the HFMA, AHIMA, the Case Management Society of America, and the Society for Clinical Coding.
Elected to board in 2010; serving through end of 2012
Trey La Charité, MD
Physician Advisor
University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Knoxville, TN
Dr. La Charité is the physician advisor for the Clinical Documentation Integrity Project at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. In this role, he has helped a 500-bed academic medical center increase the overall case mix index by more than two tenths through continuous medical staff and resident education regarding quality data management and outcomes measurement. Dr. La Charité also serves as the physician advisor for coding where his responsibilities include the formulation of all RAC appeals that involve coding and documentation issues as well as coder education bridging the gaps between ICD-9-CM, patho-physiology, and clinical practice.
Dr. La Charité is board certified in Internal Medicine and a practicing hospitalist since completion of his residency in 2002. He attended medical school at the University of Kentucky and completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Dr. La Charité began his post graduate career in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville as a teaching attending and hospitalist. Dr. La Charité is also a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine where he currently serves as the curriculum director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program’s hospitalist rotation.
Elected to board in 2011; serving through end of 2013
Gail B. Marini, RN, MM, CCS, LNC
Manager, Clinical Documentation
South Shore Hospital
Weymouth, MA
Marini is the manager for clinical documentation at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, MA. She has been working in the field of clinical documentation for nine years and assisted in the development of a local group for CDI specialists, the Clinical Documentation Specialists of the Northeast Region. As an active member of AHIMA, Marini is involved with the CDI workgroup who has assembled to discuss and align current and credible practice strategies.
Marini’s professional achievements have included nurse management, clinical resource management, PHO case management, and Medicare fraud and abuse auditor. Marini also works as a Medical Billing Advocate in association with Medical Billing Advocates of America (MBAA).
Elected to board in 2010; serving through end of 2012
Lynne Spryszak, RN, CCDS, CPC-A
CDI Education Director
HCPro, Inc.
Danvers, MA
lspryszak@hcpro.com
Lynne is the CDI Education Director for HCPro, Inc., in Danvers, MA. Her areas of expertise include clinical documentation and coding compliance, quality improvement, physician education, leadership and program development.
Prior to joining HCPro, Lynne was a manager with a pair of national consulting firms, assisting with Clinical Documentation Integrity (CDI) Program implementations. She has several years’ experience as the Manager of the CDI program at a 400-bed acute care facility.
Lynne has over 16 years of health care experience with more than six of those years in the clinical documentation improvement arena. She has held positions as manager of a CDI Program; as a Certified Case Manager with a privately-held case management firm specializing in catastrophic case management; as a home hospice case manager; and as a staff nurse with positions on medical/surgical and oncology units.
Lynne co-authored the Physician Queries Handbook: Guide to Compliant and Effective Communication, published in August, 2009 by HCPro, Inc. Lynne is also a member of the CCDS exam committee, serving as a content developer, and teaches the ACDIS-sponsored CDI Boot Camp.
Donna D. Wilson, RHIA, CCS, CCDS
Compliance Concepts, Inc.
Senior Director
Donna D. Wilson, RHIA, CCS, CCDS is a senior director in the consulting division of Compliance Concepts, Inc. (CCI). Her focus is assisting providers in the RAC initiative through detailed coding audits, analyzing PEPPER reports, and developing best practice CDI and revenue integrity programs. She has been in the coding quality/health information management field for over 28 years, her most recent role being the Revenue Integrity Manager of a large acute care facility (where she was responsible for RAC coordination).
Wilson is an active volunteer for and has received numerous awards from both the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) and the component state associations in the South Carolina (SCHIMA). She is a frequent speaker at the state and national levels. She has conducted multiple AHIMA audio seminars and participated in the National Medicare RAC Summit as a speaker on behalf of AHIMA. She recently authored the AHIMA publication “Responding to a Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) Evaluation” and “Benchmarking to Improve Coding Accuracy and Productivity.”
Elected to board in 2011; serving through end of 2013
Lena N Wilson, MHI, RHIA, CCS, CCDS
HIM Operations Manager
Clarian Health
Indianapolis, IN
Wilson is HIM operations manager for Clarian Health in Indianapolis, Indiana. She has been involved in various aspects of CDIP since August 2005. In October 2007, she was named the manager of all CDIP operations. In her current role she manages eight Clinical Documentation Liaisons across six Clarian Health facilities located throughout the state.
During her time at Clarian Health, she has also worked with coding quality and auditing and also managed the inpatient coding operations. Wilson obtained her Master’s in Health Informatics from Indiana University, where her thesis was based on the impact a CDI program can have on a healthcare facility.
Elected to board in 2010; serving through end of 2012
Previous ACDIS advisory board members
- Cindy Basham, MHA, MSCCS, BSN, CPC, CCS (2007-2010)
- Gloryanne Bryant, BS, RHIA, RHIT, CCS, CCDS (2007-2010)
- Shelia Bullock, RN, BSN, MBA, CCM, CCDS (2009-2011)
- Jean S. Clark, RHIA (2007-2010)
- Wendy De Vreugd, RN, BSN, PHN, FNP, CCDS (2007-2010)
- Garri L. Garrison, RN, CPC, CMC, CPUR (2009-2011)
- Colleen Garry, RN, BS (2007-2010)
- Robert Gold, MD (2007-2010)
- William E. Haik, MD (2007-2010)
- Tamara Hicks, RN, BSN, CCS, CCDS (2007-2010)
- Robin R Holmes, RN, MSN (2009-2011)
- Pam Lovell, MBA, RN (2007-2010)
- Shannon McCall, RHIA, CCS, CPC, CPC-I, CCDS (2007-2010)
- Colleen Stukenberg, MSN, RN, CMSRN, CCDS (2009-2011)
- Heather Taillon, RHIA (2007-2010)
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