Happenings
Division 4M Honors Outstanding Associates
Coach of the Quarter
Tracy Davis
For the second quarter of 2024, Division 4M has chosen Tracy Davis, a medical review supervisor in Home Health Review Choice Demonstration (HH RCD) as the Coach of the Quarter. More than just a supervisor, Tracy engages her team members with daily affirmations and weekly trivia days. She sends encouraging quotes, messages of empowerment and even incorporates humor into the Teams chat to help brighten the mood. Tracy takes the time to motivate and encourage each team member and offers support, so individuals never feel like they are facing challenges alone. During heavy workload periods, Tracy has been a positive voice for her team and a great role model who focuses on the positive and the big picture.
Associate of the Month — April
Ashley Branham
A medical reviewer II in HH RCD, Ashley Branham has been selected as the April Associate of the Month because of the initiative she takes to encourage others. In addition to being positive and encouraging, she also shares informative and helpful e-mails and messages to help her colleagues do the best work they can. Ashley regularly listens to her teammates’ ideas and provides constructive feedback and encouragement (?). Even when her workload is heavy, she takes as much time as is needed to answer questions and always supports her reasoning with relevant educational materials.
Associate of the Month — May
Leslie Nelson
Leslie Nelson is a medical reviewer II in HH RCD and has been named the May Associate of the Month for her role as a preceptor to new and returning medical reviewers. Known for being encouraging and positive, Leslie guides her precepts with care, answers questions patiently and provides additional information when needed or desired. She is so committed to her preceptor responsibilities that she continues to offer guidance and answer questions of others even after they leave her tutelage.
Associate of the Month – June
Rachel Rueff
Described as kind, approachable, encouraging and innovative, Rachel Rueff is the Division 4M June Associate of the Month. A quality assurance and training coordinator in HH RCD, Rachel is a tech savvy and knowledgeable team player who readily volunteers to help others and answers questions with helpful details. She is a great teacher who takes the time to demonstrate how to complete complex tasks or use an application. She even started a workgroup that transformed their training curriculum into an easier-to-follow trainer’s guide.
Rachel encourages collaboration by inviting others to discuss or even challenge her views and ideas. She is committed to the team’s development and continuous process improvement (CPI). Always looking for ways to improve our processes or ways to save time or money, this year Rachel has authored one approved CPI, is authoring two more and has participated in the development of several others.
Team of the Quarter
Tracy Davis’s Medical Review Team
Team members: Amy Bailey, Katie Bates, Kristie Bauer, Shellie Burkett, Joyce Frost, Mary Gardner, Shana Griffin, Ashley Grover, Crystal Hill, Kerri Holtsizer, Quinda Johnson, Andrea Marshall, Carla McLain, Terry McManus, Staci Nalley, Jennifer Rogers, April Spoon, Pernilla Steinmann, Briley Wallace, Ashley Whisenant
The Team of the Quarter has been awarded to the HH RCD Medical Review team supervised by Tracy Davis because of the support they offered a coworker whose husband experienced a medical emergency. With no family members nearby to help and serving as sole caregiver to three young children and a husband, the staff member felt overwhelmed. Her team members stepped in quickly with calls, texts, prayers of support and even gift cards for food. She said, “I could not have made it without them. I wanted to thank them all from the bottom of my heart for being my ‘family’ when I needed it the most. God bless them all.”
Process Improvement of the Quarter
Implementation of the Revised HH RCD QA Mailbox Question Template
Team members: Ivry Brown, Chantal Combs, Jessica Davis, Jessica Gibert, Jennifer Gills, Linda Hall, Lindsay Hamilton, Tiffani Heyl, Leslie Hodges, Janelle Lavoie, Teresa Marchi, Valen McLean, Gina Metts, Amanda Olsen, Rachel Payne, Sonia Purl, Rachel Rueff, Katie Rummel, Kellie Schultz, Emily Tidwell
Medical Review associates in HH RCD submit questions regularly to the Quality Assurance and Training (QAT) team email address. The reviewers submit their questions by completing the fields on a form template. Both reviewers and QAT staff had identified ways the template could be improved so they assembled a work group to address their concerns. The work group invited template users to complete a survey to gather their ideas, feedback, preferences and needs. The group used the results to create a new template form that users can download and copy into the body of an email. Users can then save that email in MS Outlook templates and pin it to their computer’s task bar, making it accessible with one click.
The new template features drop-down menus and color-coded fields that indicate which fields must be completed for each question. The template also includes a new subject line that helps QAT team members identify the most time-sensitive questions in the inbox. The new template includes a grid feature that reviewers can use to identify supporting information by document name and page number. The final improvement was to remove the QAT response section at the bottom of the template. Now the QAT team responds in the body of the reply email, so reviewers no longer need to scroll to the bottom of the form to find the response.
Because the new template design and features improved usability and efficiency for both submitters and repliers, it has been named the Process Improvement of the Quarter.
