Judy is an experienced medical marketing executive and expert in medical technology reimbursement. She has been responsible for the development and execution of reimbursement strategic plans, market positioning strategies, and policy analysis for medical products manufacturers throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Prior to the formation of PRG in 1991, Ms. Hickey's background includes positions in marketing management and reimbursement for medical products companies, including Medtronic and Datascope.

In addition to consulting, Ms. Hickey has served as co-chairman of the reimbursement Committee for Minnesota Medical Alley, a nonprofit trade association with more than 260 members from all aspects of the Minnesota health care industry. She has also served as a faculty member of the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology (NASPE). She has written numerous published articles on reimbursement issues and is a sought after speaker and lecturer on various reimbursement related topics.

She holds a BSBA degree in Marketing from the University of Missouri and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Martha has a diverse career history in medical product reimbursement, health care management, marketing and regulatory management. The convergence of this experience makes her a valuable member of the PRG team and an expert resource to clients.

Ms. Christian assists clients by conducting reimbursement assessments and developing strategic plans for gaining reimbursement with a variety of payers. She can evaluate issues from both the payer and provider standpoint and recommend the most successful program based on what each will require for a positive reimbursement decision.

In her role as Clinical Outcomes & Health Policy Analyst for Empi, Inc., she was successful in gaining Medicare coverage for pelvic floor stimulators after years of non- coverage. Martha has an extensive knowledge of the criteria required by Medicare when evaluating products for national coverage decisions. She has successfully lobbied Congress for changes in product reimbursement and the Medicare coverage process.

She holds an MS degree with a concentration in Nursing Home Administration from Mankato State University and a BA degree in Political Science from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Dr. Martinson's commercial experience includes 20 years of clinical trials, health economics and outcomes studies in both medical device and pharmaceutical companies. This experience makes her well qualified to help PRG's clients demonstrate the value of their new medical technologies to healthcare payers, public and private.

Melissa assists clients by evaluating the economics of their medical devices. She has used economic analyses to show the trade-offs between the up-front costs of implantable devices and device therapies administered in-hospital, and savings achieved during the post-implant or post-treatment period. This helps payers understand the economic benefit of covering procedures in which the costs are all up-front. She has used economic analyses to identify patient subgroups that achieve the greatest clinical success per dollar invested in treatment. This helps clients lead coverage applications with their most compelling clinical indication and request reimbursement commensurate with the best cost-effectiveness. She frequently uses economic models in her analyses so that data from clinical trials, healthcare claims databases, and the literature can be combined. This enables her to complete economic analyses for clients quickly and cheaply compared to economic analyses using primary data from outcomes studies.

She holds a B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College, and both an M.S. in Statistics and a Ph.D. in Health Services Research from the University of Minnesota. She holds an Adjunct Professorship at the University of Minnesota in the School of Public Health, where she teaches graduate-level economic modeling.

Since joining PRG at its inception, Joe has specialized in developing and maintaining our extensive databases, as well designing custom reports and procuring data to meet the specific needs of our clients. He is also responsible for managing PRG's day-to-day operations.

Prior to joining PRG, Joe served nearly 20 years in various sales, marketing, accounting, and market research positions in the consumer products industry.

He holds a BS degree in Business Logistics from the University of Missouri.

Karissa is responsible for conducting coding, coverage and payment research, as well as supervising our reimbursement hotline services. In addition, she conducts customized training programs for PRG's clients on a variety of reimbursement related topics.

Karissa brings to PRG an extensive background in coding and claims management. Her previous experience as a claims examiner brings a unique insight and perception to PRG's customer support services.

Ms. Alm graduated Cum Laude from St. Cloud State University with a BA degree in Communication Disorders. She also holds the professional designation of Certified Professional Coder (CPC).

Mary specializes in coding and payer research as well as supporting our reimbursement hotline services. Mary also serves as PRG's HIPAA Compliance Officer.

Prior to joining PRG, Mary worked for seven years in a high-risk obstetrical practice performing functions such as managing, billing, transcription, scheduling and reviewing medical records. Mary has a diverse background in sales, administration, research and business office management.

Ms. Lagerquist holds a BS degree in Medical Technology from the University of Minnesota and the professional designation of Certified Professional Coder (CPC).

Jodi provides support to our reimbursement hotline services as well as conducting coding and payer research.

Jodi's experience includes 20 years as a dental hygienist and dental office manager. As manager she was responsible for billing and submitting insurance claims.

Ms. Chartrand graduated from the University of Minnesota as a dental hygienist in 1982 with a minor in public health. She received her accreditation as a Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) in 2005 from the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).

In addition to administrative duties and acting as PRG's "first point of contact", Vicki serves in the all-important role of coordinating project scheduling and keeping the rest of us on track.

Vicki's background includes positions within the healthcare system as well as the insurance industry where she was involved with verifying coverage and benefit information.

Dr. Ohrt specializes in technology evaluation and coverage issues.

He previously served for a number of years as Vice President and Medical Director for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, with responsibility for utilization management and technology evaluation, as well as managing relationships with providers and producers/vendors of medical products. Additionally, he served as Senior Vice President of Blue Plus, a wholly-owned managed care subsidiary.

Prior to that, he was Minnesota Medical Director for the Laboratory of Clinical Medicine, a regional organization delivering a wide variety of services for patients and their caregivers.

Dr. Ohrt holds an MD degree from the University of Nebraska, and is board certified in anatomic and clinical pathology and nuclear medicine. He also holds an SM degree (MBA) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

With a long and varied career as a nurse, author, academic and researcher, Mary's clinical experience has included working in general medicine, oncology, coronary and neurology intensive care, gastrointestinal and most recently, the genitourinary areas of nursing. Her experience as a case manager for reimbursement and a director of nursing in the long term care arena, setting up an independent nursing practice and several continence programs, and her experience working with medical manufacturers, allows Mary to synthesize information in a unique fashion.

In her role as Clinical Advisor to PRG, Mary reviews clinical applications and supporting documentation for medical technologies in order to assist our clients in making stronger cases for both efficacy and reimbursement.

She has gained national recognition as an expert in the field of urology, with a focus on incontinence, assisting both the medical profession and patients in understanding how to manage this condition.

Holding both BS and MS degrees in nursing from the University of Minnesota, Ms. Dierich also serves as adjunct clinical faculty for the U of M School of Nursing. She is certified in urologic nursing and is licensed as a gerontological nurse practitioner in the state of Minnesota.

Bud has nearly 30 years of experience in the medical device industry. His extensive background in medical device product development includes all classes of devices. He has a successful track record with IDEs, 510(k)s and PMAs.

Bud has a BS degree in engineering from the University of Minnesota and has worked with several medical device companies, including Medtronic, Envoy Medical and Comedicus.

With over 26 years of medical product marketing experience, Kathy brings to PRG an extensive knowledge of the changing dynamics within the health care industry, as well as an ability to strategically assess the market environment and address the reimbursement/marketing mix early in the product development process.

She has previously held various marketing management positions with Medtronic. Kathy was also a Vice President with GHBM Healthworld, a communications agency specializing in medical product accounts.