Linda is a physical therapist with a Masters in Health Sciences. She has worked in the home health industry since 1988, is a nationally recognized expert on OASIS, the Hospice Item Set and quality measurement and improvement. She also serves the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and its contractors, assisting in home health and hospice quality measures development, data set refinement, and maintenance and updating of Guidance Manuals and other key provider education resources for the Hospice Item Set and OASIS. She provides oversight and subject matter expertise to manage contracts for CMS’s Home Health Quality Reporting Program, CMS’s Hospice Quality Reporting Program, and the CMS Home Health Value Based Purchasing Technical Assistance Contract. She served as the President and a Founding Member of the OASIS Certificate and Competency Board (OCCB), and continues to oversee the COS-C Exam as Chair of the Exam Review Task Force. Linda is President and Founder of OASIS Answers, Inc.
Megan Bernier is a physical therapist with a Masters in Physical Therapy. Megan serves as an expert in data collection guidance for the PAC assessment instruments and is a lead for the CMS QRP helpdesks for home health, SNF, IRF, and LTCH. Megan shares her vast knowledge in data collection expertise in presenting education for CMS and OAI trainings. She has worked in the home health industry since 2010 as a field clinician, as well as in supervisory and administrative positions supporting home health quality improvement, regulatory compliance, clinical documentation, and operations. Megan currently supports OAI’s post-acute care work with provider education, guidance manual work, and CMS Help Desks support that provides guidance on data collection of OASIS, the MDS, the IRF-PAI and the LTCH CARE Data Set. She has a passion and appreciation for the critical need for OASIS accuracy and is a knowledgeable and engaging national OASIS educator. Megan holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) designation and serves as a Post-Acute Care Senior Clinical Manager with OASIS Answers, Inc.
Kerry is a physical therapist with a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. She has worked in the home health industry since 2007, as a field clinician, as well as in roles supporting coding and documentation for compliance and quality. She has over 10 years of experience conducting detailed reviews of clinical documentation for home health and hospice providers, focusing on OASIS and diagnosis coding accuracy, as well as regulatory compliance and documentation to support Medicare coverage. Kerry is a certified coder and an AHIMA Approved ICD-10-CM Trainer. She holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) designation and is a Senior Clinical Lead with OASIS Answers, Inc.
Lori is a physical therapist with a master’s in business administration. She has been practicing for 25 years. Initially focused in an outpatient setting, she transitioned to home care in 2009. Lori’s experience includes positions as a field clinician, quality educator and clinical manager. By focusing on high-quality outcomes and performance improvement, Lori’s work emphasizes the critical need for OASIS accuracy in measuring and achieving clinical success. Lori currently supports OAI’s CMS contract work related to OASIS data collection guidance and serves on OAI’s Blueprint Presenter Team. Lori holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist- Clinical (COS-C) designation and is a Clinical Consultant with OASIS Answers, Inc.
Marian is a registered nurse with over 25 years of experience in home health, hospice, and community-based services. Marian works in conjunction with CMS leaders in the support of quality measure development and monitoring, public reporting and confidential reporting of quality measures across post-acute settings. Marian served as the Director for the Home Health Quality Improvement Organization Support Center (QIOSC) for Pennsylvania's Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) and served as Director for the Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign to reduce avoidable hospitalizations. As a recognized expert in developing and supporting quality improvement activities at the local, state and national levels, Marian has served on and led numerous CMS technical expert panels and quality improvement committees. She currently supports OAI’s Post-Acute Care initiatives, including providing subject matter expertise to OAI’s CMS contract work supporting the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing project, and the Hospice Outcomes and Patient Evaluation (HOPE) instrument and quality measure development work. Marian holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) designation and serves as Chief Quality Officer with OASIS Answers, Inc.
Amy is a registered nurse with over 15 years of experience in home health, hospice, and post-acute care data collection and quality measurement. She has supported data collection accuracy since 2014, beginning as a field clinician and progressively advancing to clinical supervisory and leadership roles. Amy has developed system- wide trainings and managed staff and systems to support accuracy in home health, hospice, and post-acute care data collection and improvement. Amy currently supports OAI’s CMS contract teams related to OASIS data collection guidance, hospice measure and instrument development, and serves as a member of OAI’s Blueprint Presenter Team. Amy holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist- Clinical (COS-C) designation and is a Clinical Consultant with OASIS Answers, Inc.
Wendy is a physical therapist since 1989 with experience in home health, acute care, rehab, outpatient, and skilled nursing. She is an Associate Professor in the Doctoral Physical Therapy Program at Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. Wendy is a Geriatric Clinical Specialist (GCS) and Certified Wound Specialist (CWS), has a Geriatric Training Certificate (GTC), and serves on the editorial board of Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation. She has co-authored books on home health rehabilitation and has published hundreds of articles on home health therapy in peer-reviewed and trade publications. She provides training nationally on geriatric strengthening, wound assessment and management, falls prevention, and competency testing for home health physical therapists on the drug regimen review and pharmacology. Wendy holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) designation and is an Associate Consultant with OASIS Answers, Inc.
Elaine is a registered nurse, practicing in home health since 1977. Elaine’s detailed and provider-focused insights have supported the propulsion of the original HHVBP Model to a national expanded Model. She also supports the development and testing of the CMS standardized data collection tool for hospice, HOPE. She has held a variety of clinical and management positions at hospital-based, local government, and non-profit agencies. Most recently, Elaine served as Quality Improvement Manager at a large, urban private non-profit certified home health agency where she provided staff education, and monitored aggregate and patient-level data to meet the agency’s financial and quality objectives. Elaine has been a clinical instructor in the nursing programs at Loyola University of Chicago, University of Massachusetts/Amherst, and Northeastern University, and has presented at the state, regional and national levels on home health clinical practice, including issues related to caregiver needs and patient engagement.
Elaine holds the Certificate for OASIS Specialist-Clinical (COS-C) and serves as the Senior Clinical Manager with OASIS Answers, Inc.
