Make Pain a Thing of the Past – healthcare leaders – Physician Partners of America

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PPOA Patient Care Champion- Cathryn Lopez

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Cathryn Lopez: Front Office Manager, Plano, 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.

PPOA’s Park Ambulatory Surgery Center’s Front Office Manager, Cathryn Lopez embodies the values of a true Patient Care Champion. Cathy is the first person patients interact with when they walk into the door and she never fails to greet them with kindness. We would like to recognize Cathy for performing her job at an exemplary level.

Cathy has been a Texas native her entire life. She was born in Dallas but raised in Carrollton where she attended Creekview High School. She now resides in The Colony, TX with her husband of seven years, Jeremy and their beautiful Scottish Terrier, Rupert. When Cathy isn’t hard at work for PPOA she enjoys cooking and crafting.

Cathy began her early career as an office manager for Texas Fiberglass pools. She decided to make the switch to the healthcare field in November 2019 when she started here at PPOA. Cathy is the Front Office Manager for Park ASC. Some of her day-to-day responsibilities include checking our patients in, scheduling our patients for procedures, and overall providing them with all the information they need to be prepared for their procedure.

Cathy has always gravitated towards helping others, “I love knowing that I have made a difference in a patient’s situation or even just in their day. My patients come in hurting and if they leave here with a smile I know I have made a difference. I also take pride in getting to know them on a more personal level. I try my very best to remember something specific about each one, so when they come back I can connect with them and they know they aren’t just another procedure,” Cathy says.

The patient surveys for Park ASC always come back rating the front desk as excellent, “Cathy is always very friendly and caring to our patients and staff. She discerns a persons’ needs quickly and efficiently provides them with key information, recommendations, and direction. Cathy always treats our patients with respect and tries to make them feel like family,” Michelle Borrego Park ASC Administrator says.

PPOA applauds Cathy for her hard work and thanks her for all that she does. She is truly a Patient Care Champion.

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PPOA Patient Care Champion- Shirley Serovey

Shirley Serovey: Authorization Specialist, Tampa, FL-

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.

PPOA’s Authorization Specialist, Shirley Serovey deserves to be recognized for her hard work. Patient Care Champions don’t necessarily have to work on the front lines to make an impact. Shirley proves this by working behind the scenes helping patients get their insurance approved to meet their healthcare needs. She represents all of the values we have here at PPOA.

Shirley has been a Florida resident her entire life. She was born and raised in sunny Tampa, FL. In her early life she attended Hillsborough High School. She then went on to study at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL where she received her Bachelors in Nursing and Medical Billing and Coding.

After college Shirley returned to Tampa and began her healthcare career at the University of South Florida. She took on multiple rules as a surgery coordinator, authorization specialist and an administrative assistant. Working for the University of South Florida also included working for Tampa General and Moffitt Cancer Center. She then made her way to PPOA in December 2018.

Shirley works at PPOA’s headquarters located in Tampa, FL as an Authorization Specialist. Some of her day-to-day duties include initiating and following up on insurance authorization requests for the Ambulatory Surgery Centers, executing appeals for authorization denials, maintaining relationships with medical directors and insurance companies and overall advocating for our patients.

She has been an asset to PPOA, “Shirley is the jack of all trades and is relentless in her efforts to obtain authorizations for our patients. She goes above and beyond daily and uses her RN experience to help get approvals. She has over 20 years of experience in healthcare and is truly a tremendous asset to PPOA,” Yoany Gonzalez, Associate Director of Revenue Cycle says.

Shirley has always been fascinated with helping sick people. This is what drove her to the healthcare field. In college she chose to major in Nursing along with Medical Billing and Coding not to help sick people hands on, but to help patients get their insurance approved while having an understanding of their healthcare needs.

Shirley enjoys helping patients in a way that most people don’t immediately think about, through being their insurance advocate. “I just love to see their face light up when you give them hope that they will get better and help them understand the process of their insurance and their treatment,” Shirley says.

Shirley has two children, one daughter and one son who graced her with five grandchildren. One of her grandchildren is Autistic, which has made her a huge supporter of Autism Speaks. In her free time she enjoys quilting, stitching and crafting.

PPOA applauds Shirley for her hard work and thanks her for all that she does. She is truly a Patient Care Champion.

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PPOA Patient Care Champion- Teresa Alvarado

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Teresa Alvarado: Practice Manager, Keller, 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.

PPOA’s Practice Manager of the Keller clinic, Teresa Alvarado has gone that extra mile. This pandemic has been tough on everyone but instead of letting it get the best of her, Teresa has gone above and beyond to make sure everything continues to run smoothly. She represents all of the values we have here at PPOA.

Teresa was born in McAllen, Texas surrounded by beautiful palm trees in the Rio Grande Valley. Ironically she grew up in Muscatine, Iowa surrounded by cold snow and dead trees, but still loved that Midwest charm. She studied Health Information Management at Black Hawk College in Moline, Illinois. Eventually she made her way back to Texas and has been there for about 5 years now.

Teresa has worked in the medical field for 25 years. She started her journey as a Medical Assistant for pediatrics for about 9 years and then continued as a Medical Assistant for another 3 years in family practices. She then expanded her healthcare knowledge into the insurance field. She was a medical insurance manger for 3 years and then went into coding and billing for 4 years.

Finally Teresa made her way to the PPOA family in August 2016. She originally applied to work as a Medical Coding specialist but was hired as a Practice Manager for the Keller location instead. As a Practice Manager Teresa has many duties. Some of her duties include assuring patients are correctly scheduled, reaching out to patients regarding procedures, clinical visit requirements, issues or concerns, assisting with the check-in/out process, addressing any concerns or tasks providers or medical assistants may have, and she even helps triage patients.

She has been an asset to the Keller team, “Teresa works very closely with Dr. Heil and the staff at Keller and goes out of her way to make sure all patients have a great experience. The past few weeks as the clinics have been short staffed Teresa has stepped in and assisted in patient triage while also managing the clinic and ASC schedule very efficiently. There isn’t a task that Teresa won’t take on. During the COVID19 crisis Teresa remained diligent and focused on the success of the Keller clinic,” says Rhonda Boysen, Regional Director Clinic Operations.

Teresa holds herself at a high standard for patient care, “It is an honor to have someone trust me with their health, it is a privilege and I always keep that in mind. Providing care with true empathy is hard to find, I make it my mission to make each and every patient feel that they are a person, not just a dollar sign walking into our office,” Teresa says.

PPOA applauds Teresa for her hard work and thanks her for all that she does. She is truly a Patient Care Champion.

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PPOA Patient Care Champions – Terica Cox

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TERICA COX – REGIONAL MANAGER, 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. 

Terica Cox manages her Texas clinical teams on one key principle: “I tell them that we are all one fall away from being a patient ourselves and we should treat patients the way we would want to be treated,” she says.

It comes in part from personal experience. A lifelong Dallas resident, Cox says her mother suffered a bout of sickness and had to have several emergency surgeries. “Healthcare intrigued me. I wanted to learn more about it and how I could help my mom in her time of need,” she says.

That led her to study at PCI Health Training Center in Dallas and become a certified medical assistant (CMA). She worked in a variety of specialties including occupational medicine, cardiology, labor and delivery, and internal medicine, before finding pain management.

“I love patient care. I love specialty, so anything that’s a specialty allows me to learn new things. I like to learn new things all the time,” she says.

She joined PPOA in November 2014, in a position that was then known as a clinical coordinator, in the Grapevine location, now closed. She was later promoted to practice manager of the North Dallas clinic, and assumed her regional manager position in 2016.

She now oversees practice managers in Carrollton, Desoto, Frisco, McKinney and Richardson, plus two Capstone Pain and Spine partner clinics.

 

“I love the relationships you build with patients because these are the people you see every month,” she says. “Knowing we’re making a difference, seeing patients relieved of some of their pain, is rewarding to me.”

For Terica Cox, that means not only making sure patients receive excellent health care, but also asking them about their day, or a recent vacation, or their children. She embodies the patient-focused concept of AIDET and instills it in the people she supervises.

She is also known for both leadership and interpersonal skills. “I want to be the kind of manager that people feel they can come to and talk about anything,” she says. “I try to make it personable and be approachable.”

She has been known to invite team members for holiday dinners, check on those who are sick, or just call and say hello to someone she hasn’t heard from in a while.

“Terica Cox is very passionate about every patient having a great experience,” says Rhonda Boysen, Cox’s supervisor. “I’ve also found her to be engaged and resourceful to providers and support staff in her clinics.”

As you might imagine, family is everything to Cox. She and her husband have two daughters: Nature, who turns 24 this year, and Breyanna, 11.

Nature is following in her mother’s footsteps, taking classes toward her nursing degree. Mother and daughter are study partners, too: Cox is now working on her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at West Coast University in Dallas.

“I look forward to continuing to learn and grow,” she says.

 

 

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