Mehrdad Shafa, MD
Physician Consultant
Dr. Shafa is a recognized authority in resource management for Medicare and Medicaid populations, and has been involved as Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director with numerous turnaround operations for Aetna Insurance Company and other health plans across the US. He also has been the clinical leader of Quality Improvement Organizations and Patient Safety Organizations in Indiana and Arizona. Dr. Shafa has successfully led many projects involving project execution, care transformation, specialty drugs pharmacy management, physician practice management, development of operating software for case management decision support, and innovative solutions for comprehensive home health management and care management programs. Dr. Shafa has in-depth knowledge of health care reform laws, patient-centered medical homes and accountable care organizations.
Dr. Shafa is on the Board of Trustees and chairs the Continuing Medical Education Committee of the American College of Medical Quality; and also serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Board of Medical Quality.
Trained as a pediatric emergency medicine physician, he began his career at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan. He has held a faculty position at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and is currently a senior scholar at Jefferson School of Population Health, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Dr. Shafa also holds a Masters Degree in Medical Management from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. Finally, he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American College of Medical Quality.
Coleen W. Young, FSA
Senior Consultant
Coleen W. Young, F.S.A., has twenty-five years of actuarial and consulting experience in group health and welfare benefits, providing strategic consulting, actuarial services and contract negotiating support to a wide spectrum of clients including providers, self-insured employers and insurers. Clients have included Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, The Toledo Hospital, Amgen, AT&T and WageWorks.
Previously, Ms. Young was an Actuarial and Benefits Consultant with Treacy & Rhodes Consultants (TRC). In that capacity, she worked chiefly with large employers such as Southern California Edison, the County of Los Angeles and John Deere to provide actuarial and strategic financial management for employee and retiree benefits.
Ms. Young is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She graduated with honors from Rice University with a B.A. in Economics and in History and received her M.A. in Economics from the University of California at San Diego.
Terry McInnis, MD, MPH
Physician Consultant
Dr. McInnis is a senior physician consultant for SSB Solution, with deep experience developing and sharing best practices that align financial incentives and benefit design changes for payers, providers, hospital systems, and patients resulting in reductions in cost and improved quality.
Dr. McInnis co-chairs The Center for Public Payer Implementation and co-leads the Medication Management Taskforce for the Patient- Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC) where she continues to lead strategies to successfully coordinate care, improve patient outcomes, and reduce overall healthcare costs. In 2010, her leadership efforts were accredited for the successful compilation, launch, and widespread adoption of the PCPCC Resource Guide: Integrating Comprehensive Medication Management to Optimize Patient Outcomes.
Dr. McInnis has over 20 years of senior executive and clinical experience with various employers, the military, and hospital/group practice health management segments .She has served as the Medical Director for Health Policy and Advocacy in the U.S. for GlaxoSmithKline the world’s second largest pharmaceutical company. Prior to joining GSK, she was the Corporate Medical Director for Michelin North America where she helped engineer the redesign of the healthcare benefits for nearly 50,000 beneficiaries and worked as a committee member of the National Business Group on Health.
Dr. McInnis received her Doctor of Medicine from Wake Forest Medical School, being designated a NIH clinical scholar. She completed a residency in Occupational Medicine as an OPSF scholar, and a Masters of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma. She is Board Certified in Preventive and Occupational Medicine, a Fellow of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Kyle Green
Senior Consultant
Mr. Green is a former healthcare provider senior executive with significant operations, strategy and business development experience. His focus areas include strategic positioning, service line/new venture development, physician/hospital alignment, operations implementation and cultural integration.
He has consulted with a diverse group of healthcare organizations, including large, for-profit health systems, non-profit health systems, children’s hospitals, health IT startups, and humanitarian groups.
Mr. Green was most recently the Senior Vice President of Business Development and Chief Strategy Officer at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, one of the five largest freestanding children’s hospitals in the United States. He was also previously the Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations at Phoenix Children’s.
He also served as System Vice President, Pediatric Services, at Norton Healthcare and Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, Ky. Norton Healthcare is a five-hospital system and winner of the 2011 National Quality Forum (NQF) National Quality Healthcare Award. Before Norton Healthcare, Mr. Green led the opening of the first international standards hospital in Shanghai, China while working for Johns Hopkins International.
He earned a Master’s in Health Administration from the University of Kentucky and a BA in Biology from Transylvania University in Kentucky. He also completed the inaugural Managing Healthcare Delivery program at the Harvard Business School and was an Administrative Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Health System.
Jacque J. Sokolov, MD
Chairman and CEO
Dr. Jacque Sokolov is chairman and chief executive officer of SSB Solutions, Inc. a national healthcare management, development and investment firm.
He currently serves as a director of Hospira (NYSE:HSP), MedCath Corporation (NASDAQ:MDTH), the National Health Foundation (NHF), Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and the White House Health Project. He previously served as the vice president of healthcare for Southern California Edison Corporation (NYSE:EIX) and chairman of the board of directors for Coastal Physician Group, Inc. (NYSE:ERDR), as a director of the American College of Medical Quality (ACMQ) and the National Business Group on Health (formerly WBGH).
Dr. Sokolov received his BA in medicine from the University of Southern California and his M.D. from the USC School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and his fellowship in cardiovascular diseases from the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical School.
He currently holds--or has held--academic appointments and advisory board responsibilities in the Schools of Medicine, Business and Public Health at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California.
James Whitfill, MD
Physician Consultant
Dr. Whitfill has over 20 years experience with the union of information technology and healthcare. He has served in leadership roles within a variety of settings, including large academic institutions, large practices, as well as clinically integrated organizations. His focus has been on the use of business intelligence for clinical and operational improvement within healthcare organizations; leadership and team development; workflow-focused information technology; as well as technology and cultural issues within corporate mergers.
Dr Whitfill is a nationally recognized expert in Medical Imaging Informatics. He instructs in these topics at the UniversityArizona College of Medicine-Phoenix and the Arizona StateSchool Graduate Program in Informatics, and has consulted on information technology required in the formation of clinically integrated organizations and ACOs. He has served as an industry advisor for GE Healthcare and Phillips Healthcare,
He received his AB from Princeton University, and his MD from University of Pennsylvania. He did his residency in Internal Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and was the first physician to complete a fellowship inInformatics in the University of Pennsylvania Department of Medicine. is currently a Board member for the Society ofInformatics in Medicine and a faculty member at theSociety of North America annual meeting.
Mitzi Krockover, MD
Senior Partner
Dr. Krockover is nationally recognized for her work in women's health. She previously worked as Vice President of e-Health and Women's Health for Humana, one of the country’s largest health plans. In her role, Dr. Krockover served as the company's chief healthcare strategist and spokesperson for women's health and health education. Programs under her direction included Humana Beginnings, a comprehensive prenatal program that measurably improved the health of at-risk neonates. Humana Beginnings became one of Humana's first on-line member programs.
Previously, Dr. Krockover was the founding medical director of the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women's Health Center, a primary-care based women's health center. Dr. Krockover played a key role in developing the vision and implementation of an integrated women's health center "without walls", and under her direction, UCLA was named a Center of Excellence in Women's Health by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Christopher A. Schaefer
Managing Partner
Mr. Schaefer, a Partner and Senior Consultant with SSB, brings to clients close to 30 years of professional experience across the health services spectrum. Over this period, he has provided strategic counsel and support to dozens of hospitals, integrated delivery systems, physician organizations, and managed care plans, working in a wide range of diverse and challenging geographic markets.
His specific business and strategic planning expertise centers on business analysis, situational and market assessments, physician alignment and networking strategies, hospital partnering facilitation and support, new business development, integration of master facility and strategic planning initiatives and operations assessment.
Recent and current engagements include strategic facilitation and support for hospital partnerships; development of specialty heart hospitals; physician alignment strategies; and a variety of strategic and business plan development projects with large integrated delivery systems and community hospitals.
Michael Treacy, JD
Managing Partner
Mr. Treacy is a seasoned healthcare expert specializing in physician alignment, strategic planning, organizational effectiveness, project management, and interim executive management. An attorney by training (J.D., Cornell University), he has over 30 years of experience as lawyer, executive and consultant in healthcare and related fields.
Mr. Treacy’s work has encompassed a wide variety of problems, including the management of rising health care expenditures (for employers); the development of integrated healthcare delivery systems (for hospitals and physicians); physician alignment challenges (for hospitals and physicians); mergers and affiliations (for hospitals, physicians, and health plans); business strategy (for hospitals, health plans and venture companies) and cardiovascular service line expansion (for hospitals and physicians).
Ron Anderson
Principal
Mr. Anderson offers 35 years of professional experience with large world-class healthcare organizations in a variety of roles. He has served these organizations in mainstream planning/operations related to multi-specialty integrated group practice and managed care, developing/maintaining successful working relationships with business partners, and providing external/internal consulting services.
His business expertise lies in developing visionary strategies and execution plans for physician alignment, integrated healthcare delivery systems, and quality improvement initiatives. He can facilitate team-building across a variety of participants, including group practices, hospitals, businesses, and health plans. He understands and emphasizes the importance of patient centricity, clinical/operational efficiency, sound project management principles, and strong physician leadership in building the healthcare organizations of the future.
Mr. Anderson received his B.S. from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, his M.S. degree from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, and a Certificate of Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI.
David Liff
Principal
Mr. Liff has worked as project leader or advisor to a number of SSB clients, leveraging 25 years experience as both business executive and strategy consultant to leading healthcare and healthcare technology organizations. His expertise is focused primarily in new venture planning and development, where he has helped a number of companies assess new market opportunities, structure operations, and develop successful roll-out strategies.
Across his career, he has worked with dozens of hospitals, health systems, physicians groups and medical research organizations on a variety of clinical and technology development initiatives. Organizations Mr. Liff has assisted include Scripps Health, University of California at San Francisco, Catholic Health Initiative, Humana, Alegent Health, and McKesson Health Solutions.
His current work centers primarily on helping SSB clients discern and address the strategic implications of health care reform. He was helped multiple delivery organizations systematically move towards clinically integrated platforms and new structures for hospital and physician collaboration.
Mr. Liff holds a BA in Economics from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business.
Duncan E. McGillivray, MBA
Senior Consultant
Mr. McGillvray brings 25 years of expert experience as an executive and advisor on business valuations, mergers & acquisitions, financial analysis, and project management. His business valuation expertise includes experience assessing companies in a wide range of industries and capital structures.
He currently also serves as the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Healthcare Community Development Group, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SSB Solutions. HCDG offers project leadership services for New Markets Tax Credit transactions that provide eligible clients with an opportunity to reduce capital investment and programmatic costs with federal support. Mr. McGillivray collaborates with law firms, accounting firms, bond underwriters, commercial banks, investment banks and construction developers to put NMTC-subsidized transactions together.
Mr. McGillivray's has worked with top commercial banks and corporate clients in the U.S. and Asia, including Weyerhaeuser, Nike, PepsiCo, Qwest Communications, IBM and Western Union. He has also advised or worked directly with healthcare companies, including the former publicly-traded CIS Technologies (a healthcare information services enterprise) and Biodimensions, a cardiovascular device engineering firm.
Mr. McGillivray received his B.A. from Pomona College and his MBA from Columbia University.
Maxene Johnston
Senior Consultant
Ms. Johnston brings more than 25 years of combined management, turnaround, executive search and entrepreneurial experience in nonprofit organizations, government, business, healthcare and philanthropy. Her areas of expertise include growth management, executive search and technology investment and partnership services.
From her strong background in solving complex business and organizational problems, Ms. Johnston works with organizations facing challenges to their ability to provide services to their communities. She is a noted expert in helping non-profits in particular transform themselves by establishing and implementing the necessary strategies, plans and resources to evolve to the next level of maturity. She has worked previously with both foundations--such as the Milken Institute--as well as California state government agencies.
Ms. Johnston received her Master's in Anthropology, with an emphasis on Medical Anthropology, from California State University, Los Angeles and her Bachelor's from The University of San Francisco.
Hugh A, Larson
Senior Consultant
Hugh Larson has provided health care management consulting services for over 20 years. During this period of time, he has worked with many different participants in the health care marketplace in both the provider and payer setors. He has a broad range of experience in assessing health care risks, developing strategies to minimize those risks and implementing proposed solutions.
Mr. Larson has significant experience negotiating health care costs. He has represented some of the largest private purchasers of health care such as AT&T Corp., Constellation Energy Group, Lucent Technologies and Tribune Company. On behalf of many of his clients, Mr. Larson has developed and negotiated a broad range of risk sharing arrangements reflecting the willingness and ability of both payers and providers to share in health care cost risks.
Previously, he was a principal at Larson Consulting and a consultant with Treacy & Rhodes Consultants.
Mr. Larson received his B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California at San Diego.
Charles Slaton
Senior Consultant
Mr. Slaton brings extensive executive experience to SSB clients, leveraging a long and successful career in hospital management and development. Most recently, he served as both chief operating officer and chief executive officer at NASDAQ-listed MedCath (MDTH), the country’s largest specialty hospital organization focused on cardiovascular services with over a dozen facilities nationwide. Prior to MedCath, Mr. Slaton held senior executive roles at Tenet Healthcare, with regional responsibility for 20+ hospitals spread across several states. He has also played senior leadership roles at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis and St. Joseph Health System in California.
Charles Yaney
Senior Consultant
Mr. Yaney has over 20 years of health care consulting experience, helping healthcare providers implement broad improvement programs, formulate strategies, and streamline operations. His deep project management experience comes from spending much of his career with Arthur Andersen's Healthcare Operational Consulting Practice as well as APM Management Consultants/CSC Healthcare. Prior to working with SSB Solutions, he worked at Capgemini Ernst and Young in their Healthcare Strategy and Transformation practice.
Mr. Yaneyhas has broad financial expertise in developing models of proposed clinically integrated organizations, accountable care organizations, mergers and other joint ventures and transactions. These analyses have focused on the reimbursement impacts of new managed care products and contracts, analyzing operational efficiencies, and developing operational performance improvement initiatives. His recent experience includes working with several organizations in partnership with their key primary care and speciayt physicians in the analysis and creation of accountable care organizations including developing infrastructure requirements, creating a financial pro formas and supporting value based contracting processes.
Mr. Yaney received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from University of California at Los Angeles and his Masters in Business Administration/Masters in Public & Private Administration from Yale University School of Management.
Fred Hosler, MD, MPA
Principal
Since the mid 1990s, Dr. Hosler has focused on working with complex health care systems throughout the United States to galvanize physician alliances and improve operational performance by integrating processes and developing synergistic programs that bring value to patients, physicians and institutions. He has published descriptions of innovative medical staff models designed to enhance physician alignment.
Dr. Hosler’s career includes leadership in university and integrated delivery systems with extensive expertise in community based healthcare. Recent experience includes leadership development, organizational redesign, systems thinking, clinical outcome management, strategic planning, performance improvement and knowledge management.
He received his BA from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado his MD from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, Colorado, and his Master of Public Administration with certificates in Finance and Health Care Administration, University of New Mexico.
John Nimsky
Senior Consultant
Mr. Nimsky is an SSB-affiliated healthcare executive with over twenty years senior leadership experience in both provider and health plan operations, partnership formation, business development, strategic visioning, and managed care. His areas of expertise include:
- Strategic planning and market analysis related to medical campus development, program service line development, and health plan formation;
- Strategic partnership/venture development including provider-owned health plan formation, hospital acquisition, and physician practice acquisition and management; and
- Health plan/provider contracting with an emphasis on unit cost analysis, reimbursement methodology configuration and fee setting.
Mr. Nimsky has held numerous senior executive positions with large provider and health plan organizations in the role of Administrator, Regional Vice President and Corporate Director for organizations including Columbia/HCA, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, Coventry Health Plans, Scottsdale Healthcare, and PMH Health Resources.
