TANYA STARKS Heads Insurance Follow-Up Team
With 22 years working in the healthcare revenue cycle industry, and 4 years at Hollis Cobb, Tanya Starks was recently promoted to the position of Insurance Follow-up Manager. Her diverse work background includes resolving self-pay balances, appealing denied claims, following up on unresolved claims and training new employees on client processes, making her an excellent choice for promotion to management in the Insurance Follow-up Department.
In her new role, Tanya manages client work queues to ensure that insurance balances are worked timely and efficiently. She strives to strengthen her team’s effectiveness by using a hands-on motivational approach, and she provides analysis and trending reports to clients with the goal of resolving all accounts expeditiously.
A native of Atlanta, Tanya tells the story of how she got into the revenue cycle industry explaining, “When I was 10 years old, I was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. I shall never forget all of the doctors’ appointments I had to go to and treatment plans by the endocrinologist and primary care physician. My mother would receive medical bills and be very frustrated that she had to pay so much when she had great insurance through the State. At the age of 25, I decided I would get a job in the healthcare industry to gain an understanding of how the bills were created.” From there Tanya landed a job as a healthcare customer service representative in 1998, and later moved on to another company where she worked as a Revenue Cycle Manager, running a call center of 25 associates in the patient services department. Four years ago, Tanya came to Hollis Cobb as an Insurance Follow-up representative, working her way up to Team Lead and now Manager.
Tanya holds her CPAR designation (Certified Patient Account Representative) through HFMA (Healthcare Financial Management Association). She said she is committed to evaluating what she can do better each day to increase retention among her staff and keep the clients satisfied with her department’s work. She said one of the things she likes best about her position at Hollis Cobb is “working with a team of great people who are passionate about getting the job done regardless of any obstacles that may come their way.”
In her spare time, Tanya enjoys cooking and spending time with her family, her husband of 11 years and 19-year-old stepson. She loves attending her stepson’s football games and is very proud of him for being named player of the year for 2019 in DeKalb County Georgia. He has been offered a full 4-year scholarship to the University of Louisville, Kentucky where he will major in sports broadcasting.
Tanya’s positive attitude, enthusiasm for her work and dedication to encouraging and motivating her staff to excel in their job duties has made her a tremendous asset to the Hollis Cobb management team.
JESMIN PATEL Leads Expanding Patient Access Team
After excelling in her work at Hollis Cobb for the past 2 ½ years, Jesmin Patel has been promoted to Patient Access Team Lead. As client needs in the area of Patient Access have grown rapidly, Hollis Cobb has expanded service offerings to meet those needs, and Jesmin’s experience and excellent work record made her an obvious choice for promotion to Team Lead.
In her role, she supervises the operations of a team of pre-certification agents in five different specialties. Jesmin is responsible for further on-the-floor training of agents once they complete Hollis Cobb’s training program, and she focuses on helping the agents develop their productivity, accuracy and expertise in pre-certification. Jesmin also ensures all accounts are updated in a timely manner, communicates with the client to ensure quality of service and conducts audits on work performed by the agents on her team.
“Growing up, I always knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the healthcare field,” Jesmin said. “I originally started as a pre-medical student in college, and found that area was not for me. I later became interested in heart disease due to having a strong family history. Working to get cardiology authorization really helped me further pursue my interest. I felt a sense of satisfaction knowing that patients are able to get their procedure,” she explained.
Born and raised in a small town in Middle Tennessee, Jesmin moved to Atlanta to pursue better opportunities in the healthcare field and to be closer to her oldest sister. She has been in Atlanta for 5 ½ years now. She began as an office administrator at a primary care practice and moved on to join the Hollis Cobb Patient Access Department. Jesmin holds a Bachelor of Science in Community and Public Health, an MBA with a concentration in Healthcare Management and is also a Certified Medical Billing Professional.
Jesmin commented, “I like the challenge of helping the agents understand and providing guidance on specific account related issues or concerns. I like to push them to their full potential and help them to develop new skills within the team. I would like to grow in my position at Hollis Cobb and further attain more management skills.” When Jesmin is not leading her team in Patient Access, she enjoys cooking, spending time with family, and watching her favorite football team, the Tennessee Titans.
Hollis Cobb’s management team looks forward to supporting Jesmin as she grows in her leadership skills and continues to help her team exceed their clients’ goals in their performance.
NATALIE ROJAS Promoted to Lead Pre-Certification Project
Natalie Rojas has been with Hollis Cobb for nearly 4 years and was recently promoted to Pre-Certification Lead as the company’s front end services in Patient Access continue to grow and expand. Natalie stays busy each day providing job specific training for new employees on her team and monitoring all work queues and pending accounts for her staff for timeliness and accuracy. She reviews any denials with the goal of getting them overturned as quickly as possible, reviews and prioritizes her team’s workload and communicates daily with the clients she represents.
Natalie said she finds her work interesting and challenging. “I have always had a passion for helping people, learning and challenging myself.” When she began working in the area of pre-certification, Natalie said she found she had a talent for interpreting medical terminology and clinical information. “It is surprising what one can achieve with the unlimited resources Hollis Cobb provides,” she commented. Natalie has her Certified Healthcare Access Associate (CHAA) designation through the National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM) and plans to continue her healthcare education next year.
Starting out in cardiology pre-certification, Natalie became more interested in radiology after a family member was diagnosed with cancer. “My own experience at home helped guide me in the new specialty we took on at Hollis Cobb,” she noted, going on to say that it pleases her to “obtain approvals for medically ill cancer patients through their treatment and to overturn denials for complicated cases.”
She explained, “The amount of gratefulness in these patients’ voices when we are able to advise them they are good to go for their approval, without having to worry, makes the whole experience worth it.”
An Atlanta native, Natalie began her healthcare career at a pediatric/family practice. This first job in the industry sparked her interest and lead her to seek more challenging endeavors in the medical field. Today Natalie said she seeks to “be a positive role model for my team, and have them gain the knowledge they need to help them succeed in this industry.” When not leading her pre-certification team, Natalie spends most of her time with her 7-year-old son who, she said, is the motivation for everything she does.
The leadership team at Hollis Cobb is impressed with Natalie’s energy and hard work, and expects great things from her in the coming years.
SHARANDA MANLEY Using Diverse Experience to Improve Processes
Promoted to Process Improvement Coordinator after 2 years with Hollis Cobb, Sharanda Manley first came to work with the company while she was still a student at Kennesaw State University. She has a wide range of experience in healthcare including work as a registrar, pre-certification coordinator, case manager, surgery scheduler and general manager.
Sharanda serves as a resource for education and training on internal process and quality improvement tools and strategies. She is responsible for analyzing and measuring the effectiveness of existing processes and developing sustainable, repeatable and quantifiable process improvements. Sharanda researches best business practices, and works with staff to eliminate process-related obstacles. She identifies ongoing training needs, trains new staff and conducts refresher training. She is involved in onboarding new services, and creates standard operating procedures and policies by payer, specialty and client.
“I enjoy developing multiple solutions to problems,” Sharanda said, adding that, “This allows me to think outside of the box and develop my critical thinking skills.” Sharanda is currently working on completing standard operating procedures for Hollis Cobb’s Patient Access Department by specialty. She holds an Associate’s Degree in Human Services and is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. Sharanda holds a number of designations through HFMA (Healthcare Financial Management Association), including CPAR (Certified Patient Access Representative), CHAA (Certified Healthcare Access Associate) and CBCS (Certified Billing and Coding Specialist).
When not working in her role at Hollis Cobb, Sharanda is active in her community, volunteering at church, preparing meals for people in need, passing out hygiene kits to individuals in the community and spending time with her close-knit family. Hollis Cobb management is excited about the ideas Sharanda has to improve processes and help the company be the best that it can be.
