Make Pain a Thing of the Past – Patient Care Champions – Physician Partners of America

PPOA Patient Care Champions – Amanda Blair

AMANDA BLAIR, PRACTICE MANAGER, McKINNEY, TEXAS

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care.

Amanda Blair grew up wanting to be a cop like her grandfather. The idea of helping people and righting wrongs appealed to her nature. That dream eventually came true – she did spend time in law enforcement – but ended up transferring those skills to the healthcare field.

As the practice manager of Physician Partners of America – McKinney, TX clinic, Blair pulls together many skills to keep the practice running smoothly. She keeps the schedule moving, supervises the staff, assists the practice physician, Dr. Edrick Lopez, and – her favorite part – helps people get out of chronic pain.

“I find it so rewarding,” she says. “We have one patient who lived in pain for 20 years. Dr. Lopez completed the spinal cord stimulator procedure for him, and he is now pain-free. Seeing people with chronic pain like that drastically improve is so gratifying to me.”

Blair became the PPOA McKinney practice manager in February 2019 with a background in law enforcement and management, but has quickly woven herself into the PPOA culture and proven a more than capable healthcare leader.

“She is the true definition of a practice leader and is very well-respected by her physician and APP in the practice,” says her supervisor, Rhonda Boysen, regional director of operations – Texas. “She has become a strong support to her operations manager and is always open and willing to help others. Her clinic has become our ‘go-to’ clinic for new hire training. We are very proud to have Amanda as the leader of our McKinney practice with Dr. Lopez.”

Embracing challenges is second nature to Amanda Blair. Growing up in the Central California town of Bass Lake near Yosemite National Park, she grew up skiing, hiking, and horseback riding. Graduating from high school at 16, she put herself through college by training horses. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Criminology at California State University – Fresno, she moved to Texas with her sister and took a job as a fraud analyst for a banking firm.

“I loved it but I felt I wasn’t that involved in affecting people’s lives on a day-to-day basis and being a positive influence in the way I’d hoped,” she says. She was promoted to a management position in financial risk mitigation for a mortgage company, and while she was grateful for the management experience, she still wasn’t fulfilled.

“I did some research and decided to go back to school and get my degree in nursing,” Blair says. She is currently working toward her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Texas Women’s University, and one day aims to be a nurse practitioner. For now, combining her leadership skills and desire to help others is a perfect fit.

She credits her team for the clinic’s success with helping patients. “It’s amazing to be a part of the practice here. We have great team of staff and providers,” Blair says. “I couldn’t be luckier to have the dedicated staff I do. They’re all so helpful and committed to exceptional patient care. It’s rewarding to be part of such a great team.”

Her “team” at home is equally rewarding. She and her husband have a 17-month-old son. Although she hasn’t ridden horseback in a while, Blair enjoys staying active by running, including marathons and triathlons. Work, too, gives her energy.

“There are so many moving pieces. There’s never a dull moment. I wear a lot of hats and every day is different,” she says. “It can be challenging to juggle everything, but I love challenges.”

 

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – Georgiana George

GEORGIANA GEORGE, SENIOR ACCOUNTANT – TAMPA

 

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care.

Georgiana George has worked her way up quickly at PPOA. She was recently named senior accountant at the company’s Tampa headquarters. She’s responsible for training newcomers to handle the hundreds of transactions a fast-growing healthcare corporation demands.

Her job touches just about every department, from building leases to making sure clinics have petty cash. She is the one who reconciles company credit cards and makes sure every expense is put is the right category.

While her job doesn’t touch patients directly, it is an essential part of ensuring the success of PPOA’s mission: delivering world-class patient care. That means taking her job seriously and helping her coworkers.

“Georgiana truly is the ‘dream’ employee,” says her supervisor, Controller-ASC Division Lisa Llorente. “She is an extremely hard worker who always goes the extra mile to get her job done.”

Working for a fast-growing company in a big city is not where Georgiana George thought she would be as she grew up in the one-red light town of Cedar Bluff, Alabama. Always strong in math, she earned her B.S. in Accounting from nearby Athens State University. She met her husband, Caleb, at work.

When he landed a job as a paralegal at MacDill Air Force Base, the two moved to Tampa. It was by far the largest city she had ever lived in, but the couple quickly adapted, and enjoy its sunny weather and pace of life.

After working for nearly two years as an accountant at the mega law firm of Morgan and Morgan, George joined Physician Partners of America in May 2018.

As required in the numbers field, she is passionate about precision, making sure her email inbox is zeroed-out by the end of the day; but don’t mistake her for the strictly no-nonsense type.

She and her husband are proud dog parents, with three rescues including a three-legged Chihuahua. “We take the dogs no one else wants,” she says. “My motto is, ‘the more, the merrier.’” She also enjoys sewing, a skill she learned from her mother. “It’s very relaxing,” she explains.

Still, work is a priority, and Georgiana George is highly valued throughout the company. “She is a team player who will pitch in to help any time she is asked,” Llorente says. “She offers to help when she sees someone needs a helping hand.”

 

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – William Scott

WILLIAM SCOTT – MEDICAL ASSISTANT, TAMPA-FLETCHER

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care.

William Scott always knew he wanted to help others. Growing up in Tampa, Fla., he was an active volunteer at church, helping the sick and elderly with errands, and helping his own mom after an injury. “It’s always been in my heart to help other people,” he says. “I’ve always been hands-on and want to help.”

Today he enjoys assisting patients at the PPOA Fletcher Avenue clinic in Tampa. His duties mainly involve helping with appointments and interventional pain management procedures, but he prides himself most on making patients comfortable.

“William goes above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to patient care, whether he is making an appointment for a patient or assisting a patient with a wheelchair to their car,” says his supervisor, Practice Manager Amanda Perrone. “He does not just come to work to get a pay check; he comes to work because he generally cares about each and every single patient.”

Adds Dr. Carissa Stone, one of the pain management physicians he works with, “William is kind, hardworking, very effective and cares about his work and the patients.”

Scott’s path to healthcare was not direct. Like many young people, he tried out several paths. After graduating from Robinson High School in Tampa, he worked in maintenance and restoring homes, then worked for UPS for six years.

“I found myself wanting a more fulfilling path,” he says. A friend’s mother worked as a nurse at a local nursing home, and offered on-the-job training. He found his calling.

“The feeling of helping another person is one of the greatest feelings in the world,” he says. “Even if you help one person a day, then you’ve helped make a better change in your life.”

He enjoys spending time outdoors with girlfriend Sheena Sierra, who also works as a PPOA medical assistant, and their children. William Scott also plays drums in his church band, and helping others both inside and outside of work.

“You only have one life to live,” he says, “so why not help make other lives great?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PPOA Patient Care Champion – Evidelsy Vazquez

EVIDELSY VAZQUEZ: AUTHORIZATIONS AND VERIFICATIONS TEAM LEAD, TAMPA

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

Evidelsy “Evi” Vazquez gets excited talking about insurance. Who does that? you might ask. Talk to her for a few minutes and you’ll understand why.

Vazquez is an authorization and verification specialist team lead, the one who tells patients what their insurance covers. She also leads the 18-member team responsible for clinics, procedure suites and ambulatory surgery centers. Her department’s goals are to deliver authorizations to the clinics, allowing physicians to perform needed procedures helping patients get out of pain.

“I love knowing what we can do to help someone,” she says. “We’re up against insurance companies. If they don’t want to pay, you’re limited. But an insurance verification and authorization specialist finds out why they don’t want to pay and finds out what can be done to get that claim paid. Knowing I can help really makes me keep pushing.”

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y. who moved to Bethlehem, Penn. at age 11, Vazquez has an innate desire to help others and was always drawn to healthcare. She earned her Certified Medical Assistant certificate at Star Technical Institute in Allentown, Penn., then began work at nearby Lehigh Valley Hospital.

The physician residents who staffed the facility had an all-hands-on-deck mentality that allowed medical assistants to learn a variety of tasks. “They let us do a lot of hands-on work because they were learning, too,” she says. “I worked the front desk doing insurance. I took out sutures. I assisted with injections. I scheduled patients. I loved being so involved,” she says, adding that she enjoyed working in the hospital’s pain clinic.

That experience helped her find her niche. Evidelsy Vazquez moved to St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Penn., and became a financial counselor. She loved helping patients understand changes in insurance plans, and getting referrals and authorizations.

“I Realized How Important Insurance Is”

From there, Vazquez moved to Florida and helped start up the verification team at the now-defunct Laser Spine Institute. After ten years of growing that part of the organization, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her work had taken a personal turn.

Out of work for 18 months, the company could not hold her job and the insurance coverage that came with it. She got by through grants, help from her family, and sacrifice. “I was self-pay for everything,” she recalls. “I tried to apply for grants, used pharmacy discounts, got fewer pills and stretched them out until someone could give me money,” she said. “I realized how important insurance is.”

As she got back on her feet, she she decided to start job-hunting. She found PPOA through am amazing coincidence.

“On the day I learned I was in remission, I was sitting in the waiting room at Florida Cancer Center and saw a commercial for Dr. James St. Louis,” she recalls. Dr. St. Louis had recently come from Laser Spine Institute to PPOA to head its laser spine division. Vazquez had enjoyed working with him at LSI and immediately applied to PPOA “for any job I could.”

Putting Patients First

Vazquez says she enjoys the patients-first environment at PPOA, and the unique challenges she handles every day: winter visitors with out-of-state insurance, the different specialties she works with, and trying to help people get insured for procedures.

“A lot of it is making sure our documentations meet the insurance requirements so they could cover what a patient can or can’t do physically. That can make all the difference,” she says. “So I work closely with the clinics.”

Her manager, Christopher Ripoli, enthusiastically nominated her as a PPOA Patient Care Champion.

“Evi’s leadership capabilities, caring not just for patients but for her coworkers and team members, demonstrates her exceptional understanding and qualities that are an asset to the department, as well as to PPOA’s mission and values,” he says.

In addition to helping others at work, Vazquez is a giver in her personal life. She is the wife of a pastor, the Rev. Miguel Marquez of Church of God Ebenezer in Tampa. They have a blended family of four daughters and a son.

Evidelsy Vazquez has founded her own ministry, Abby’s Heart Mission Ministries, inspired by her own late mother’s personal mission trips to the Dominican Republic. Vazquez and her ministry have helped feed and clothe hundreds in the impoverished Caribbean island for the past four years. The ministry also has delivered kids’ school backpacks and blankets to the homeless in Tampa.

 

Did you know that PPOA offers FREE online insurance verification? Click here for details.

 

 

 

 

 

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – Jessica Sutherland

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JESSICA SUTHERLAND – MEDICAL ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT, HURST, TX

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

Jessica Sutherland started her career making people look better, but then found her calling helping others feel better. She found the perfect fit at PPOA’s Precinct Ambulatory Surgery center in Hurst, Texas, and has never looked back.

“I love talking with people. I love the face-to-face and putting patients at ease,” she says.

According to her supervisor, Kristy Gildersleeve, Jessica Sutherland does more than that.

“She has been with PPOA since 2014 and has been my right hand. We are only as good as our parts and she makes PPOA look stellar,” says Gildersleeve.

“She knows every patient and vendor and they all love her. If you are at Precinct and have a question, doesn’t matter what it is, she knows the answer and who to put you in contact with,” Gildersleeve adds, “and Jessica does it all with the warmest most endearing smile.”

The pain management field also appeals to Jessica Sutherland because she, too, is a pain patient. A high school drill team stunt caused her to fall and hurt her back. After years of putting it off – like many pain patients, she was scared of treatment – she finally sought interventional procedures from Dr. Luis Nieves at PPOA’s Hurst clinic.

Later, she had a laminectomy decompression procedure by spine surgeon Dr. Phillip Kravetz. She is now pain free.

“I’ve been a pain patient as well, so I can relate to our patients,” she says. “When people tell me their stories, I can tell them I had the same procedure.”

An Army Brat born at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, Sutherland grew up mainly in Fort Polk, La., and the outskirts of Fort Worth, Texas. Like many young people, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do but knew she loved working with people.

Cosmetology school sounded appealing. She got her license in 2009 and worked as a stylist for a few years. Then the birth of her son, Daelan, in 2012 caused her to do some soul searching.

“I wanted something with more stability and more meaning. Good health insurance was also important to me as a mom,” she says.

The answer came from one of her clients, who was in the medical field.

“I always assumed that you were either a doctor or a nurse, and that’s all there was,” she says. “My client told me about all the many careers available. I was so happy to hear there were front desk positions I could train for. That seemed to be a perfect fit.”

Sutherland enrolled in Everest College and got her Medical Administrative Assistant diploma. She got a job at a hospital emergency room doing collections – and hated it.

“It filled me with anxiety; it was so intense,” Sutherland says. “It wasn’t for me.”

She went back into hair styling until a PPOA recruiting effort at Everest drew her back in. And she’s been the friendly face – and go-to person – at Precinct ever since.

“I am always amazed at how she can have someone on the phone, working the computer, while also checking in patients, and responding to the staff as they lay something else on her,” says Gildersleeve.

 

Sutherland is kept busy in her personal life, too. She and her fiancé, Brad, an Army veteran and construction worker, have a blended family of three sons: Grayson, 7; Daelan, who is now 6; and Braelan, 2.

“In the end I found my calling and I couldn’t be happier,” she says.

 

 

 

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – Marlene Chinchilla

MARLENE CHINCHILLA – PATIENT EXPERIENCE COORDINATOR TEAM LEAD, TAMPA

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

Marlene Chinchilla may not be the one who holds your hand at the doctor’s office; she’s the one who does it virtually, over the phone. She’s the comforting voice on the phone, the one who checks out your insurance, the one who patiently answers your questions about procedures; the one who calls every patient “honey.”

People like her, known as patient experience coordinators, are essential to a healthcare practice, and they have one of the most difficult jobs – plural.

At any given time, you will see Chinchilla working two or three phones and two computer screens, a trainee perched by her side. She juggles the calls effortlessly, pointing out what she’s doing to the newcomer. On one line is a patient who needs to reschedule a laser spine procedure; on another, someone who isn’t clear what his insurance covers; on the third is a doctor who wants to make a referral to one of PPOA’s 40-plus pain management specialists.

It’s a stressful, fastball environment that would break some people, but Chinchilla takes it all in stride. “I’m a natural multi-tasker” she says.

While her skills may come naturally, they were honed in a radically different first career. A native of Miami, Chinchilla earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in social work at Miami Gardens’s St. Thomas University and pursued a career in social services.

She worked at the Florida Department of Children and Families in various positions: case manager for drug-dependent clients, hospice services, and therapist for some of the state’s most troubled youth at G4S in Avon Park.

“Working in social services made me realize how precious life is. These kids – things happened to them that were not their fault, usually involving a parent’s drug use,” she says. “Sadly, many of these kids would do something to wind up back in jail as soon as they got out.”

After being attacked in a riot she hit the reset button in her life and made the career switch into medicine. “I was a single mom of two kids,” she says. Chinchilla became a receptionist at a medical group in Sebring, Fla., working her way up to insurance verification and records management.

She and her two children have always been extremely close; so when her son Nicholas Gillespie got into the National Aviation Academy in Tampa, she didn’t hesitate to look for work nearby.

Chinchilla started at PPOA’s Tampa headquarters in 2015. Her daughter, Yessenia Sanchez, also works as a PPOA patient care coordinator, while Nicholas works for Boeing in aircraft maintenance in Jacksonville, Fla.

With her children settled, Marlene Chinchilla can devote more time with her work family. As team lead, she keeps track of her fellow representatives’ patient interactions: the team of 12 to 15 handles up to 1,500 calls a day.

Chinchilla always tries to foster a cohesive, affirmative spirit. “I try to be positive and make sure we work together as a team,” she says. “And I always try to thank everyone at the end of the workday.”

The toughness and empathy she developed as a social worker helps her deal not only with her coworkers in a stressful environment, but with the unique needs of chronic pain patients.

“I just go with the flow,” she says. “At the end of the day, it’s all about the patients. I try to make them feel better.”

 

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Patient Care Champions – Gary Lindsey, APRN-C, DC

GARY LINDSEY, NURSE PRACTITIONER, RICHARDSON

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

Gary Lindsey, APRN-C, DC, has done many things with his life – sales, financial services, and chiropractor – but the theme that ties it altogether is caring for others. The nurse practitioner at the Physician Partners of America – Richardson, Texas, clinic is popular with patients for his knowledge and compassion.

“If you want to label my career, it’s service to others in any shape, form, or title,” he says. He comes into the clinic most days at 7 a.m. It’s a day filled with new patient visits, follow-up appointments, in-office procedures, referrals, documentations – and the dozens of other tasks to help chronic pain patients find relief. He works with pain management specialist Christopher Creighton, M.D.,

The best part of the job? Reaching people through their pain.

“It’s about giving people hope. I believe a great deal of the negative behaviors we see in people are just a reaction to fear,” he says. “It takes on many different presentations but it boils down to the same basic emotion.  If I can get past that and open their hearts and minds, then some real healing can take place.”

Lindsey learned about the value of compassionate healthcare early in life. A native of Jacksonville, North Carolina, he spent part of his childhood in Okinawa (he is of Okinawan descent). He remembers a particular physician who helped his father, a decorated war veteran of Korea and Vietnam, find relief.

“My dad had life-long debilitating back pain that would bring him to his knees. I remember vividly helping him off his knees so he could stand, get dressed and go to work,” Lindsey recalls. “It was a local doctor, Dr. John Dudley, who kept my father working for another 18 years past his 21 years of active duty military service.

Lindsey says Dr. Dudley inspired him to pursue a similar career path.

“My father retired with over 10,000 hours of sick leave and he never called in sick.  Dr. Dudley did this for many people in my hometown and made an indelible impact on me.  If I can do the same for others then my life is well lived.”

After working at a variety of jobs from service manager at a bicycle shop to top-rated sales rep for wireless phone companies and a financial services advisor, he returned to his first calling, healthcare.

Gary Lindsey earned his Doctor of Chiropractic from Parker University in 2002.  He ran a busy practice in Arlington, Texas, but saw its limitations. “I knew I wanted to know more about the entire continuum of care for the type of patients I treat, from conservative care to surgery to chronic management.  I looked at other various professions but knew that if I wanted to genuinely care for people nursing is about as close as you come,” he says. “So I started from scratch in my spare time, went back to school from an Associate’s through to a Master’s degree all over again.

He earned his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Nursing from Samford University and became a board-certified orthopedic nurse. He working at several healthcare companies and hospitals before coming to PPOA.

“I started in August 2016 and my second day on the job, our founder, Dr. Gari, handed me a laptop and said, ‘Go see patients; you know what to do,’ and I have not stopped since,” Lindsey recalls.

Gary Lindsey and his wife Tresia, recently celebrated their 26th anniversary. They are parents to Jacob, who is a 2016 United States Naval Academy graduate and naval aviator.  Gary Lindsey enjoys competitive cycling, the outdoors, and has driven high performance sports cars in Europe.

He has kept all his licenses active and continues his education current for both nursing and chiropractic.

“I am not done learning, growing, or advancing in my current field so my journey is to still keep putting tools in my toolbox,” he says. “My dream is to keep working, not retiring, and be able to confidently help others regardless of problems they bring me.  Also,” he adds with a smile, “because I have no idea how to play golf.”

 

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – Jennifer Vivar

JENNIFER VIVAR – LEAD MEDICAL ASSISTANT, MCKINNEY, TEXAS

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

Sometimes people find the medical profession by chance; others just seem born to do it. Jennifer Vivar, lead medical assistant based in the PPOA McKinney, Texas, clinic, falls into that category.

“I love helping people. It’s a gift I have. I put others before myself,” she says. “I’m very, very kindhearted.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find a single person who would disagree with her self-assessment.

“She’s very engaged in providing exceptional patient experiences for the patients in McKinney,” says her regional supervisor, Rhonda Boysen.

Born in Dallas and raised in the small town of Little Elm, Texas, Vivar was the first among her siblings to graduate from high school. She immediately enrolled in PCI Health Training Center and earned her Certified Medical Assistant certificate in 2015. She did her externship at PPOA in its now-defunct Prosper office and was hired full-time.

After working at a few PPOA clinics she came to McKinney in 2016.  Recently promoted to lead medical assistant, she now trains new hires for the role, but the McKinney clinic is her home base.

“Jennifer is always a team player and has a strong desire to grow her career path,” says her supervisor, Rhonda Boysen. “She has the respect of her teammates and they have wonderful collaboration amongst their team.”

“The clinic is our secondary home – actually more like our primary home because we spend more time here than anywhere else,” Jennifer Vivar laughs. “We get along so well. Patients see that and it makes them more comfortable.”

The patients – she always comes back to the patients.

“As a medical assistant you really do bond with patients,” she says. “They become like family because you see them every month and they tell you about their lives. Most important, you want them to be comfortable.”

 

 

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – Khiva Rogers

KHIVA ROGERS – PRACTICE MANAGER, DESOTO, TEXAS

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

If there is one thing Khiva Rogers has learned at the PPOA Desoto, Texas clinic she manages it’s that patients deserve compassion and respect – no matter how challenging they might be. And it’s something she instills in her staff.

“People in pain are not their normal selves. They’re hurting,” she says. “I treat them like I’d want my grandparents to be treated.”

That attitude comes easily to this mother of three grown sons and grandmother of four.

“My mother was a private duty nurse. She helped her patients and her patients fell in love with her,” Rogers recalls. “She always did above what was expected. I followed her into medicine and I try to follow her example every day.”

Rogers is known to keep a bucket of frozen water bottles outside the entrance for patients to sip on during scorching Texas summers. Her regional manager, Terica Cox, recalls one incident that typifies Rogers’s heart for patient care.

“One time there was a patient who was not acting normal; he was disoriented,” Cox recalls. “We checked on him. Khiva sat with him and took him into a room. She asked him, ‘Have you eaten today?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you diabetic?’ ‘Yes.’ She went to the kitchen and gave this man her lunch. That’s outstanding.”

A native of Dallas, Rogers joined the U.S. Army after high school, which took her around the world. Her job: mortuary assistant in South Korea. It was her duty to identify the remains of fallen soldiers – a task both grisly and honorable. Still, the universe kept coaxing her into her mother’s footsteps.

Being stationed separately from her husband, Randall, a fellow soldier, was also difficult, especially as their family grew. They returned to the States, and Khiva Rogers enrolled in Lakeland Medical Academy (now Herzing University) in Minneapolis, Minn. She earned her medical assistant certificate and worked at the University of Minnesota’s hospital neurology department.

After five years, the family moved back to Dallas, where Rogers earned an A.S. in Science at Richland College and went to work as the office manager at the Ashland Ambulatory Surgery Center at the University of Texas.

She came to PPOA in 2016, first in the North Dallas clinic, moving into her current role in 2018. In addition to providing compassionate care, Rogers also believes in educating patients.

“I try to inform them at all levels; not only about their condition but about navigating paperwork,” she says. “What a deductible is, what a prior authorization is. It’s not easy for someone in the profession to understand it, so how can we expect patients to get it? I will pull them to the side and explain it. I’ll even write it down if they need it.”

Her willingness to go the extra mile ever day in her job makes Khiva Rogers a PPOA Patient Care Champion.

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – Noemy Salinas

PATIENT CARE CHAMPIONS – NOEMY SALINAS, TEXAS

Our employees are all patient care champions, but some go the extra mile and we want to give them the recognition they deserve. They embody the PPOA values known as S.I.T.E. – Safety, Integrity, Teamwork, Empathy – which informs our service to patients and the community through high quality health care. 

Noemy Salinas is the practice manager of the PPOA Hurst, Texas location. With about 80 patients walking through its doors every day, it is the busiest pain clinic in the company’s Dallas-Fort Worth service area; but she handles it with grace and compassion and gratitude.

“I love being able to help. Talking to patients – some of them have no family and no one to talk to,” she says. “They catch me up on what they’ve been up to. So it becomes kind of like a friendship.”

Born in South Carolina and raised in Fort Worth, Salinas earned her Certified Medical Assistant certificate from Everest College. Very recently, she wrapped up eight years in the U.S. Army Reserves.

She was among the first wave of PPOA hires, in March 2014, starting as a medical assistant, then promoted to clinical coordinator – the precursor of today’s practice manager position.

“Noemy is very engaged in supporting her providers and support team,” says her regional supervisor, Rhonda Boysen. “Her team leads in many of PPOA’s initiatives in Texas. She has the respect of her teammates and they have wonderful collaboration amongst the group.”

One reason for that closeness is that several of her co-workers have been at Hurst since the beginning.

“We’re like a family,” says Salinas. “A family that has grown.”

As for her own family, she and her husband, Ryan, have two daughters: Genesis, 6, and Sophia, 4. Family is paramount in her life, and she sees her role as a fulfillment of her parents’ dreams.

“My parents are from Mexico and didn’t have the resources to pursue studies. My mom really wanted to be a nurse. She’d talk about it with great excitement – how cool it would be. She was so excited about it that it got me excited about it,” Salinas says.

While the pace can be hectic, Noemy Salinas never forgets why she is there. “Seeing the transformation of patients is amazing. Some people come to us and can barely walk. Over time, you see them come in and they can stand up straight and walk,” she says. “Seeing that gives you a purpose.”

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