Coach of the Quarter – Kelly Sago

Kelly Sago is the Manager of Business Proposals and has been with Palmetto GBA for over 20 years. During Kelly's tenure with the department, she has worked on proposals, cost accounting, budgets, and timekeeping. Not only does she have extensive knowledge in multiple departments, but she is also an excellent leader and an asset to her team. She encourages positive team morale, develops training, and demonstrates integrity and character. Kelly balances the challenging workloads by delegating and fostering teamwork.

Kelly puts great emphasis on proposal review to ensure accuracy and compliance with the request for proposal criteria. Thanks to her leadership skills and a keen eye for detail, we are excited to announce her as our Coach of the Quarter.

Team of the Quarter – Special Recoveries

The Special Recoveries team is a dynamic team responsible for oversight, reporting, and acting as the primary point of contact (POC) for multiple contracts. For each function that this team covers, there is a liaison that works to ensure claim submissions, inquiries, and information requests are distributed and handled appropriately. On occasion, the claim submission volume is extremely high. This, in turn, creates the daunting task of monitoring and reporting the associated overpayments. Each quarter, this team compiles and reconciles a report that includes Supplemental Medical Review Contractor (SMRC) overpayment data. The established overpayments and recoupments, as well as a status to explain any discrepancies found, are included in the report. These tasks are completed while maintaining great working relationships with our prime customers, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), other external entities, and our internal customers. Since January 2022, this team has provided oversight for over 90,000 claims across all contracts. This team is hard-working and their drive to produce quality work is why we are announcing them as our Team of the Quarter for Division 54.

Team Members: Veronica Housie, Sherise Jones, Julia Knapper, Shavone Leonard, Glenda Painter, Syaasha Rhue, and Patricia Thompson

Process Improvement of the Quarter – ARTS XML Uploader Template

In March 2022, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) phased out Internet Explorer as a supported browser for uploading invoices, making Palmetto GBA's current uploader insufficient. Along with this, CMS switched to an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format for uploading content to alternative browsers. Due to these changes, the accounting team stepped up and decided to create their own XML uploader to meet CMS requirements. This new format, with the ability to upload at a more efficient rate, saves time and reduces manual intervention.

Team Members: Willie Green, Gurmu Negeri, Brandi Samuel, Rodney Webber, and Brenda Williams

Associate of the Month (April) – Katrina Robertson

Katrina Robertson, an Accounting Technician III, is hard-working and dedicated to her position. Daily, she works to complete Jurisdiction M Part B contract supplemental databases to locate overpayment appeals. She also assigns the appeal decisions that are received in finance that need to be completed. Katrina assisted in the implementation of a process improvement that improved efficiency in assigning appeal decisions. Katrina is always willing to step up and help to ensure the overpayment appeals area continues to meet all required Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) metrics. For this, we are excited to announce Katrina as our Associate of the Month for Division 54.

Associate of the Month (May) - Tiffany Johnston

Tiffany Johnston, an Accountant IV, recently joined Palmetto GBA. Although new, that didn't stop her from doing her best work. Tiffany is highly motivated and pushes herself in her daily tasks to ensure she meets all of her team's standards and metrics. Tiffany provides a thorough review of any product she receives and does so with great attention to detail, posing questions when she identifies any discrepancies. Tiffany is willing to lend a hand and jump in to help with a proposal, even if it has not been assigned to her. We are pleased to recognize her as Division 54's Associate of the Month for her dependability, constant drive for perfection, and teamwork.