MGMA Awards Recognize Excellence In Medical Practice Management

MGMA presented its annual awards to medical practice professionals who made outstanding contributions to the profession. The awards were given to the following recipients at the MGMA 2013 Annual Conference:

Harry J. Harwick Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by The Hartford
Edgar H. Silvey, MPH, MBA, CMPE, FACHE, chief executive officer, The Baton Rouge (La.) Clinic

The Harry J. Harwick Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest recognition bestowed by MGMA. It goes to an individual who has made nationally recognized contributions to healthcare administration, delivery and/or education in his/her career, advancing the field of medical practice management.

Silvey has been a healthcare administration professional for 43 years. He has worked in comprehensive health planning, investor-owned hospital administration, not-for-profit hospital administration, mental health administration, health plan administration, and long-term care administration.  For the last 25 years, has worked as a medical group practice administrator. In his time at The Baton Rouge Clinic, it has grown by 250%, through a strong recruiting process and a number of mergers and acquisitions.

Silvey holds a master's of public health and master's of business administration from Tulane University, New Orleans.

Medical Practice Executive of the Year Award
Mischelle Ferrell, MHA, CMPE, practice administrator, Cumberland Family Care PC, Sparta, Tenn.

This award recognizes a medical group practice executive who has demonstrated a noteworthy achievement of exceptional leadership and management proficiency to enhance strategic and operational effectiveness of healthcare delivery in his or her practice and community within the last three years.

Ferrell joined Cumberland Family Care PC in 2002 and helped to implement comprehensive strategic planning in the practice, which resulted in expansion from one family medicine practice to three practices serving two counties. Ferrell also streamlined the practice’s budget, implemented new programs and services, and helped recruit new personnel.

Physician Executive of the Year Award
Susan Hardwick-Smith, MD, Complete Women's Care Center, Houston

This award recognizes a physician executive in a medical group practice who has exhibited outstanding leadership to achieve exceptional medical group performance in the delivery of healthcare in his or her practice and community through personal example and collaborative team management.

Hardwick-Smith founded and serves as Medical Director of Complete Women’s Care Center (CWCC), a 12-provider, all-female OB/GYN practice in Houston. She oversees physician contract development and negotiation, staff training, protocol development and marketing. Her leadership focus is on high level customer service, and serving her employees. CWCC has grown the number of providers at the practice by 50 percent and net revenue has grown by 30 percent. Hardwick-Smith is also involved in numerous philanthropic activities, including a surgical gynecologic mission in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

Legislative Liaison of the Year Award
Janet E. McIntyre, MBA, FACMPE, principal and consultant, JEM Healthcare, Denver, Colo.

This award recognizes a medical practice professional who has provided outstanding leadership in advocacy.

McIntyre has been a strong advocate for administrative simplification and Medicare payment reform and leads efforts to educate Colorado MGMA members. She provides regulatory and legislative updates in newsletters, emails, presentations, and at state and national conferences and events. 

Fred Graham Award for Innovation in Improving Community Health
John C. Lincoln Physician Network, Phoenix

MGMA bestows the Fred Graham Award on a healthcare organization that has developed activities and solutions to advance the effectiveness of healthcare delivery and improve community health.

Nathan Anspach, FACMPE, FACHE, senior vice president and chief executive officer, John C. Lincoln Physician Network, and his administrative team created a program that retrains combat medics and corpsmen returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as transition specialists to serve the patients of the John C. Lincoln Accountable Care Organization.  The transition specialists work with recently hospitalized patients to improve post-discharge outcomes and reduce unnecessary readmissions within 30 days for the diagnoses of acute myocardial infarction, pneumonia, and heart failure. The program also encourages and supports transition specialists to return to school to pursue nursing, physician assistant, medical doctor or doctor of osteopathy degrees.

Edward B. Stevens Article of the Year Award
Michael Sacopulos, JD, lawyer, Sacopulos Law Offices, Terre Haute, Ind.

This award recognizes a medical practice professional who has made a substantial contribution to the body of published literature to foster more effective and efficient healthcare delivery in the field of medical practice management.

This year’s winner authored “5 Unexpected Ways of Getting Sued,” which was published in the September 2012 issue of MGMA Connexion magazine.

About MGMA
The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) helps create successful medical practices that deliver the highest-quality patient care. As the leading association for medical practice administrators and executives since 1926, MGMA helps improve members’ practices through exclusive member benefits, education, resources, news, information, advocacy, and networking opportunities, and produces some of the most credible and robust medical practice economic data and data solutions in the industry. Through its industry-leading ACMPE board certification and Fellowship programs, MGMA advances the profession of medical practice management.

Through its national membership and 50 state affiliates, MGMA represents more than 33,000 medical practice administrators and executives in practices of all sizes, types, structures and specialties. MGMA is headquartered in Englewood, Colo., with a Government Affairs office in Washington, D.C.