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HICE CEO Update - January 2025

From:

broadcast@iceforhealth.org

Date:

1/9/2025 11:30:08 AM

Subject:

HICE CEO Update - January 2025

Message:

To HICE Participants

Welcome back to the bi-monthly CEO Update, designed to keep members apprised of the current happenings at HICE. We hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful holiday season! As we look back at our 2024 accomplishments and look ahead at what is to come in 2025, here is an update on what has been going on since my last report:

HICE 2024 Annual Conference / Save the Dates for Our 25^th Conference in 2025!

A big thank you to everyone who attended our conference - it was great to see everyone in early December at the beautiful Grand Hyatt Indian Wells Resort & Villas in the Coachella Valley of Southern California! The conference included presentations from healthcare associations and industry organizations, in-person presenters from CMS, sessions related to California regulatory agencies and 15 topic-specific breakout sessions, and by all accounts, it was a great success! HICE will be back at that same location for our 25^th Annual Conference on Monday, December 8 & Tuesday, December 9, 2025 – you won’t want to miss it, so be sure and save the dates!

2025 Operating Budget Funding Request Letters

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, HICE relies on annual contributions from health plans, provider organizations and other health care industry entities to support educational and collaborative activities, and our important work cannot continue without this critical funding. Second request e-mails will be sent out next week to participating organizations in follow up to the original requests that were sent out in September 2024 if the requested funding was not received. We encourage those organizations not currently contributing to strongly consider making a donation to help fund the 2025 operating budget so HICE can continue to provide a collaboration platform to develop educational and "best practice" materials designed to streamline, simplify, and standardize regulatory policies and procedures that govern the provision of health care services that particularly require collaboration between health plans and their provider partners. You can view a list of the organizations that have contributed for 2025 so far here, including those in the CEO Leadership Circle. We are very grateful for this support – thank you!

HICE Board of Directors Updates

Christopher McGlone, Chief Operating Officer for Sharp Community Medical Group, has served on the HICE Board of Directors since 2010, and he was previously a board member from 2002 – 2006. He was elected as Board President in 2022 and has ably served the organization in numerous capacities over the years, demonstrating a strong commitment to the mission of HICE and his belief in the value-add the organization brings to the health care industry.

In February 2002, HICE (then ICE) incorporated as a (501(c)(6), mutual benefit corporation, and Christopher was one of the first officers. After the organization re-incorporated as a (501(c)(3), not for profit organization, he was one of the initial board members.

Christopher has had a long history with HICE, including helping other industry executives present the idea of collaboration in the very early days through dog and pony shows with industry associations and regulators. His dedication and contributions to HICE cannot be measured, and as he steps down from his role on the HICE Board and as the Board President, I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly thank him on behalf of myself and the HICE Board of Directors for his long-time support, vision and leadership of the HICE organization. Thank you, Christopher – you will be greatly missed, and we hope to work with you again in the future!

Replacing Christopher as a director on the Board will be Yolanda Morris, Director of Delegated Health Plan Compliance at Providence Medical Foundation. Yolanda has been a co-lead of the HICE Appeals & Grievances Improvement Team since 2016, and she recently became a HICE Team Leadership Co-Chair. We have benefited greatly from her expertise and participation over the years and are very excited to have her bring that to the Board of Directors as well.

Serving as Board President for 2025 is Gena Jongebloed, Director, Delegation Relations at UnitedHealthcare. Gena joined the HICE Board of Directors in 2016, and she served as the Secretary/Treasurer from 2022-2024.

Serving as Secretary/Treasurer for 2025 is Angela Dorsey, Director, Delegation Oversight at Blue Shield of California. She previously served in leadership roles within HICE, including the shared credentialing and quality teams, and she joined the HICE Board of Directors in 2023.

Both Gena and Angela have been an integral part of the success of HICE, and we are grateful to have them serve in these very important roles on the Board in 2025!

We would also like to recognize and thank the rest of our dedicated Board members, who volunteer their time to support the mission and activities of HICE:

Sharon Almany, Regal Medical Group / Lakeside Community Healthcare
Angela Arredondo, MemorialCare Medical Foundation
Karen Bowling, Health Net
Vivian Khalil, Heritage Provider Network
Delilah Samson, Anthem

HICE Administrative Support Team Update

As HICE activities have continued to grow to support the mission of the organization, we recently undertook an effort to review the administrative duties and responsibilities for our three support staff members to better align them with the current needs of the organization, which became effective on January 1, 2025:

Patty Hermanns, Executive Administrator, who will be celebrating her 20^th year with HICE in March, will now be solely focused on the executive leadership activities of the organization by supporting me as the CEO, as well as the HICE Board of Directors. She can be reached directly at phermanns@iceforhealth.org.

Rebekah Baljet, Operations Manager, will continue to support the HICE teams and their leadership. In addition, she will oversee the website enhancement process and assist with the HICE Annual Conference. She can be reached directly at rbaljet@iceforhealth.org.

Lydia Van Weelden, Web Administrator, is a part-time staff member who supports the administrative work of the HICE website related to general activities and the HICE Annual Conference, and she also manages the social media accounts for the organization. She can be reached directly at lvanweelden@iceforhealth.org. In addition, the e-mail address for general HICE inquiries,

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