My name is Joseph Bellis, my preferred name is Joe . I have over 45 years of experience in a variety of industries. For the past 23 plus years I have been employed by organizations associated with UnitedHealth Group by acquisition, reorganization and divestiture. I began as a project manager and worked in a number of positions including consulting, account management, project management office, six sigma, lean processes, process analytics, business analysis, agile process / application development and management of offshore outreach teams.
During these 23 years, I have grown professionally as technology has changed and processes have evolved. I have developed skills in digital printing, various database management systems, process and application development, project management trends including Lean, Six Sigma and Agile, claims processing and healthcare provider data. I have become fluent with federal healthcare, Medicare and Medicaid regulations and practices. I have taken broken processes and have studied use cases deconstructed, performed root analysis, created process maps and requirements documents, managed changes with Agile methodology and worked with development teams to deliver the final product.
Aside from my work experience, I have participated in processes to improve the healthcare ecosystem. Two examples of this follow. I have included these to give you glimpse of how my mind works and how my experience, initiative and knowledge could benefit your organization.
I have also performed innovation ideation related to Emergency Department (ED) utilization among patients with all types of insured and the uninsured. Months of research and analysis of claims, lead to the conclusion that a paradigm change was needed across the entire healthcare industry. Proposed changes to patient intake, included initiation of triage procedures, multiple classification of patient and implementation of change in each ED, changing the process flow into three components, immediate care, urgent care and emergent care. The conclusion of the study showed implementation would reduce healthcare costs by $94 billion dollars.
The study was submitted to a health plan and led to modification of hospital and plan contracts. Additionally, the study was submitted to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the top 500 hospital organizations. More than 70% of those hospital organization have made changes to the ED process flow and have reaped the benefit of improvement of patient satisfaction and reduced debt write-offs.
Recently, I have performed analysis related to COVID 19 infections rates and testing processes. By looking at the data from statistical perspective instead of medical, I found two errors that epidemiologists across the nation had missed.
- The first was the reporting and emphasis on counts of new cases and hospitalization, in a vacuum, the stats were easy to report, but misleading. The analysis showed that the needed statistics were the percent of positive tests and the percent of positive that required hospitalization.
- Secondly, the analysis showed that the actual count of cases was statistically impure. The testing process overlooked the need for multiple tests of a patient due to testing error, recovery testing and negative testing for return to work. As well as the lack of a standard demographic data set. To remediate this, I proposed a change to the test data collection methodology using a standardized form, establishing a unique identifier for each patient, ability to track multiple tests and the creation of a central data repository that would be accessible by testing organizations, medical intuitions and statisticians.
The proposal has been submitted to the White House COVID-19 task-force, as well as the Centers for Disease Control, CMS and National Institute for Health. I also shared this with epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.
Summary:
Multi-talented individual seeks a growth opportunity that utilizes my talents and abilities to benefit your organization, stakeholders and clients while working remotely.
I have over 45 years of varied experience from managing operations for small printing companies; to starting my business; providing consulting services and then working in corporate America. This diverse background includes client, project and process and program management. The last 30 years have ushered in many technology changes and I have performed at a high level during this time learning everything from digital printing, database management systems, project management trends including Six Sigma and Agile, to managing offshore staff.
I have been successfully working remotely for the last 10 years, while achieving superior results. I am not quite ready to throw the towel and feel I have another three to five years left in this career. I can help move your organization to the next level.
For the past 23 years I have been working within the same organization – UnitedHealth Group. I was originally hired by GeoAccess, who made acquisitions of several provider credentialing organizations before being acquired by Ingenix, a UnitedHealth Group company. Several acquisitions later Ingenix was rebranded as OptumInsight. Following company reorganization, the name of was changed to Optum.
In August last year, my business unit of was divested to Aperture Credentialing. In February 2020, Aperture decided to eliminate the product line that I was supporting.
Aperture Credentialing – Overland Park, KS August 2019 to February 2020
Data Verification Manager
Responsibilities:
- Development of data quality improvement programs for a national healthcare provider database.
- Development of database for verification campaign, creation of email /fax / phone outreach programs
- Subject matter expert for address standardization, data quality, data sources and delivery of demographic data via email and fax.
Optum (A UnitedHealth Group company)– Overland Park, KS September 1996 to July,2019
Business Process Consultant / Data VerificatioN Manager
Responsibilities:
- Development of data quality improvement programs for a national healthcare provider database,
- Development of database for verification campaign, creation of email /fax / phone outreach programs
- Oversight of an offshore data verification outreach team in Noida, India
- Project management for a high-profile internal application and database, interfacing with development team and client team, coordinating between teams on defects and enhancements using Agile methodology.
- Subject matter expert for address standardization, data quality, data sources and delivery of demographic data via email and fax.
Accomplishments:
- I performed process analysis on an internal application used by staff to update healthcare provider data and completed reworked the process, streamlined the process and developed a new application that:
- eliminating the need for manual data entry across multiple platforms.
- providing near time update of demographic data from central database
- reducing provider abrasion by using a contact database that could be used across the enterprise to track provider interaction related to demographic update.
- centralizing provider demographic data and associated verification tags. A source of truth for data verification codes and history.
- using analytics to assign or guide the selection of providers for outreach.
- maintaining flexibility to adapt as verification requirements may change.
Project would include complete redesign of database and UI. Additionally, workflow analytics, a centralized contact database and near time refresh of data from NDB. The provider demographic database, contact workflow database and UI could be across the enterprise with its flexibility. The database was designed to intake demographic data from multiple sources and platforms and to push verified data to all related platforms.
- Perform complete deconstruction analysis review of the PVOS application, database, process and workflows. Concluded that a complete redesign of the application was needed.
- Developed target verification program for both voice outreach and fax data entry based on various scoring methodologies.
- Managed relationship with offshore voice and data entry teams initially at Cognizant and facilitated the transaction to Optum Global Services team in Noida.
- Developed workflow database and interface for use by Data Verification Outreach team in support of the Provider data Solutions database
- Used analytics and research skills to prepare an innovation ideation that could save the company billions of dollars upon implementation. The initial focus was on government programs, CHIP, Medicaid Medicare and EMTALA. The secondary focus on employer and individual coverage. The conclusion was ER utilization could be reduced by $ 94 billion (across industry) if hospitals were required to develop a triage methodology creating three care paths:
- Convenient care – (non-urgent)
- Urgent care
- Emergent / Immediate Care
Senior Business Process Analyst
Responsibilities:
- Development of data quality improvement programs for Provider Data Solutions database,
- Development of database for verification campaign, creation of email /fax / phone outreach programs
Accomplishments:
- Created workflow process for possible Disclosure of Ownership process. Performed research regarding federal and state specific requirement, Designed database, process flow, UI and ETL to clients upon completion.
- Discovery of areas of improvement regarding phone verification methodology, implemented change from Address – Phone call logic to Phone centric logic, including design of new data model and creation of specification for new phone verification application to be used by offshore team.
- Created the specifications and business requirements for address de-duplication program and address near duplicate removal program which will have a combined effect of reducing the number of provider addresses in the Provider Data Solutions database databases by 20 percent.
- Created the specification and assisted in implementation of QAS address cleaning system, resulting in additional 40% reduction on duplicate addresses.
- Created the specification and assisted in the implementation of National Change of Address service to further improvement address quality.
- Implemented use of a third-party web-based survey application, to create a user enabled data verification program with invitation being delivered by email and fax. Success of program resulting in cost reduction of verification by 85%.
Process Analyst
Responsibilities:
- Key liaison between Client Services and other Ingenix teams, translating client satisfaction objectives into clear requirements and specifications that other Ingenix teams can use to refine or build solutions,
- Implementing and documenting client satisfaction processes, workflows and requirements as they relate to the applications and solutions currently in use
- Identifying needed business/system changes and verify that the technical system specifications ensure client satisfaction requirements, researching, analyzing and suggesting enhancements to currently used applications and solutions.
Accomplishments:
- Documented business and system processes relating to client satisfaction fulfillment, prepared detailed process flowcharts and accompanying business policy and procedures
- Created database repository for client deliverables, developed database used in tracking projects for the PMO
- Creating reporting metrics for CAQH call center and imaging department’s client reporting
- Created utilization reports for PCC and PCE product offerings.
- Acted as project manager for the phase of Hewitt Data Quality Remediation program and served as subject matter expert and reporting developer for the second phase.
Client Manager
Responsibilities included development and maintenance of relationships with both clients and internal departments for the purpose of facilitating successful completion of client projects and deliverables. Positioned myself as primary expert resource and advocate of the client. Coordinated multiple company-wide system conversion projects.
Account Manager
Responsibilities included account management, selling additional products and services, implementation and delivery of client services. These services include internet-based communication solutions. Clients included employers, managed care organizations and not for profit organizations. Project implementation involves use of complicated timelines tracked with MS Project, coordination with client IT departments and working external vendors and consultants. Involved in the development of relational databases to facilitate web delivery of communication.
Services Consultant
Responsibilities included consultation with clients on deliverable of software-oriented project for all company software product. Mastered use of company software applications and aided in application QA before release. Successfully broke each of the applications, which led to product improvement.
Project Manager
Responsibilities included implementation and delivery of employee benefit communication services to Fortune 2 client. Services included provider directory production, development of online provider directory and integration into client Intranet environment, service area analysis for use in union negotiations and miscellaneous consulting projects.
Technical Skills:
Database design and development
- SQL Server
- MySQL
- Microsoft Access
- FoxPro
- FileMakerPro
Software
- Microsoft Office Suite – Access, Excel, Power Point, Project, Visio, Word;
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Adobe – Acrobat, Dream Weaver, Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop
- Crystal Reports
- Embarcadero
- QAS Pro, QAS Batch
- AccuZip
- Minitab
CRM / Cloud
- Apptivo
- Hubspot
- Salesforce
- ZenDesk
- Zoho
Education:
Undergraduate studies, William Jewell College, Liberty, MO 1975
High School Diploma, Truman High School, Independence, MO 1973