Judith M. Hickey
President
Judy is an experienced medical marketing executive and expert in medical product 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 included positions in marketing management and reimbursement for medical product companies, including Medtronic and Datascope.
In addition to consulting, Ms. Hickey has served as a faculty member of the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), a medical specialty group representing more than 3700 specialists in cardiac pacing and electrophysiology in 64 countries, and as co-chairman of the Reimbursement Special Interest Group for LifeScience AlleyTM. Ms. Hickey is also an associate of the Women's Business Leaders of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation. She has written numerous published articles on reimbursement issues and is a sought after speaker on various reimbursement related topics. Ms. Hickey is also a lecturer at Stanford University, University of California, the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, and the University of St. Thomas.
She holds a BSBA degree in Marketing from the University of Missouri and an MBA Degree from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Martha Christian
Director, Reimbursement Planning and Health Outcomes
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. Prior to joining PRG in 2001, she spent 10 years as a nursing home administrator specializing in working with facilities that were experiencing reimbursement, financial and regulatory challenges successfully negotiating their turnaround. That experience led her to begin work with medical device start-ups and with Empi, a manufacturer of durable medical equipment, leveraging her experience in public policy, health facility reimbursement, and specifically wound care to assist her former employers and current clients.
Martha has a particular interest and expertise in assisting clients early on in the product development process. She frequently works with clients to help define evidentiary needs that will help support the development of favorable coverage policies in the future as well as evaluating the need for economic data to support customer purchasing decisions and payer policy development. During the research phase, she works with clients to understand the process of reimbursement during clinical trials providing support to both client companies and their investigators as they navigate this challenging 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.
Carol Geary, BSN, MBA
Senior Reimbursement Consultant
Carol has broad experience in health care including nursing, both clinical and management, consulting for the hospitals, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies and medical device marketing and reimbursement. It is this broad experience that enables her to see beyond the obvious in evaluating a product's reimbursement potential.
Ms. Geary has over 10 years experience in health outcomes and reimbursement, providing reimbursement assessments and strategic plans to support reimbursement for products. Through her clinical understanding she is able to most effectively support the development of implementable strategies. These strategies include evidence, product development and marketing requirements.
Carol holds a BSN from The University of North Carolina and an MBA from the Kenan-Flagler Business School.
Melissa Martinson, MS, PhD
Health Economics
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.
Joseph L. Hickey
Vice President
Since joining PRG at its inception, Joe has specialized in developing and maintaining our extensive databases, as well as 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 Alm CPC
Manager, Reimbursement Support Services
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 Lagerquist, CPC
Senior Reimbursement Specialist
Mary specializes in coding and payer research as well as supporting our reimbursement hotline services.
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).
Denise Griesmann, CPC
Senior Reimbursement Specialist
Denise provides support to our reimbursement hotline services as well as conducting coding and payer research.
Prior to joining PRG Denise spent several years in the provider area where she was responsible for physician office billing and submitting insurance claims.
Ms. Griesmann received her professional designation of Certified Professional Coder (CPC) in 2008.
Jodi Chartrand, CCS
Reimbursement Specialist
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 in 1982. She received her accreditation as a Certified Coding Specialist (CCS) in 2005 from the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).
Vicki Short
Office Manager
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.
Vincent Jaeger, MD
Medical Technology Advisor
Dr. Jaeger is a consultant to medical technology manufacturers offering a range of services to ensure a positive reimbursement outcome and financial success of newly developed devices and procedures.
His experience includes 12 years of senior leadership in the Department of Medical Policy and Technology Assessment for Aetna and Health Net.
He received his medical degree from Albany Medical College and is a board certified Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon who practiced for 12 years before entering Managed Care as a physician executive.
Del Ohrt, MD, SM
Medical Technology Advisor
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.
Mary Dierich, RN, MSN, C-NP, CURN
Clinical Advisor
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.
Bernard (Bud) Horwath
Regulatory Consultant
Bud has over 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 regulatory submissions in the US (IDEs, 510(k)s and PMAs), the EU (Technical Files, Design Dossiers) and Canada (License Applications).
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.
Kathy Horwath
Marketing Representative
With extensive medical product marketing experience, Kathy brings to PRG in-depth 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 positions with Medtronic. Kathy was also a Vice President with GHBM Healthworld, a communications agency specializing in medical product accounts.