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| Board
President Barbara Berg, Administrator of the Lake Chelan Clinic since 2005, has served on the RHCAW for the past 5 years and has been a Medicare Billing Specialist. Barbara is also a member of the Executive Committee for Community Choice of North Central Washington and serves the Beacon Community Grant Steering Committee for INHS. Barbara and her husband, Jim, own a small boutique winery in Manson and have 3 daughters and 9 grandchildren. She is very active in several arenas to raise funds and donations for the Adoption Advocates International orphanage in Addis Abba, Ethiopia, and is a founding member of Chelan to Africa, her local branch of Touching Tiny Lives, which helps to support a safe house for endangered children in Lesotho, Africa. Current Term 2010-2013
Vice President
Location: 55 West Tietan, Walla Walla, WA 99362 Clinton Streifling has worked in healthcare billing since 1983. For most of those years, he has been Director of Business Services at Walla Walla Clinic, a multi-specialty practice located in southeast Personally,
Current Term 2009-2012
Member at Large Kathy has devoted her lifelong career to ensuring access to quality healthcare for Mason County. For over 30 years she has been the office manager at Shelton Family Medicine. Her duties include overseeing and training of over 60 staff members, negotiating contracts with insurance companies, recruiting physicians, dealing with legal issues, overseeing Quality Improvement efforts, accounts payable, accounts receivable, human resources, and much, much more. She can wear any hat that is needed for the day from filling in for a sick medical assistant to reaching outside of Shelton Family Medicine on joint efforts. Several years ago Kathy and her husband purchased and now operate Urraco Coffee in downtown Shelton. She is intimately involved in the daily operation of the business overseeing the employees, accounts payable, and cash flow. Her husband Kevin selects and roasts the coffee beans for freshly brewed to order coffee. They sell both ready to consume drinks and roasted coffee beans for home consumption. Together they have grown and expanded the company they purchased several years ago.
Current Term 2008-2011
Treasurer Barb has worked in healthcare since she was in Junior High cleaning the medical clinic and becoming a Certified Nursing Assistant in High School in Odessa. Other places she worked in healthcare was Spokane County Health District as secretary to a children's program, three nursing homes as bookkeeper and an Internal Medicine office in Bellingham as bookkeeper. She has been the Clinic Manager at the Odessa Clinic for the past 30 years. As manager she oversees the employees and all workings of the clinic and fills in regularly in the clinic as a certified Health Care Assistant and as well as receptionist. The clinic is part of Odessa Memorial Healthcare which is a Critical Access Hospital, so she is involved in many parts of the entire healthcare system in Odessa. One of the most important things in healthcare to Barb is access to quality healthcare in rural areas. This indeed is the reason she agreed to be a Board Member with the RHCAW over six years ago. She has continued to stay on the board as Treasurer because of her commitment to the mission of the RHCAW. If we don't work as a team to protect this aspect of healthcare, it can result in huge losses to rural health. Barb is the Secretary for the Odessa Historical Society, is active in many community activities and enjoys having a few cows, country living, traveling as time permits and visiting with friends & family. Current Term 2009-2012
Secretary Laurie Dawson has worked in the healthcare industry for 28 years. She spent the first 12 years of her career with a large hospital system in central Florida. Beginning as an admitting department float, she eventually became the Admitting Supervisor where she continued to serve until the hospital began an MSO. She was the first Practice Manager with the MSO, overseeing daily operations for 13 physician practices before moving in to the Billing Manager role for the MSO's centralized Business Office. At the time she moved to Washington, the MSO was managing and providing billing services for 26 physicians. In 1995, Laurie moved to Wenatchee, Washington to take the position of Business Office Manager at Wenatchee Valley Medical Center. She continues to serve in this capacity overseeing billing operations for over 240 primary care and specialty providers across eight campuses (these include 8 RHC's and a 21 bed hospital). Laurie has been serving on the Rural Health Clinic Association of Washington board since 2005; she is also a member of the National Association of Rural Health Clinics (NARHC) board of directors. Laurie enjoys spending time with her dogs, playing the piano and reading. She is active in her church, singing in the choir and directing the annual Vacation Bible School, as well as serving as church clerk. Current Term 2008-2011
Member at Large
Darla Westenberg has managed the Swofford & Halma Clinic since 2003. She is responsible for staffing, human resources, accounts payable, payroll, negotiating contracts, legislative issues and much more. Darla was the driving force behind Swofford & Halma Clinic and Mid Valley Community Clinic in Sunnyside becoming established Rural Health Clinics in 2006. During the last two years most of Darla's efforts have gone into coordinating the purchase of property, financing, and the building of Swofford & Halma Clinic's new facility. She was also active in helping the city receive grants for streets, sidewalks and utilities for the new business park development where their new clinic is located. Although only being involved in healthcare for the last seven years, Darla has found it to be the most rewarding position she has ever held. One of the most motivating factors for Darla are the children. Knowing that whether a child lives in a garage or a motel room receives the same quality health care as anyone else is extremely important to her. Another factor is the knowledge that the physicians she works for have been committed to this rural area for many years. Swofford & Halma Clinic have put many of the Rural Health Clinic dollars back into the community with a new state of the art facility, and added more services such as level II ultrasound for our OB patients. Darla would be willing to serve on the board for the RHCAW to help do whatever it takes to maintain what this amazing organization has done to make quality healthcare accessible to everyone. Darla and her husband Ivan live in Sunnyside where they enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren. One of their favorite past times is camping. Last year Darla also ran her first half marathon in the fight against cancer. Current Term 2010-2013
Honorary Board Members Michael Bell, CPA: Michael R. Bell & Company, PLLC , Spokane, Washington. Mike has been in public practice for 30 years, focusing exclusively on the healthcare industry by providing a full range of accounting, auditing, and financial consulting services. Mike's accounting firm provides services to clients located principally in the West and include hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, rural health clinics, and other healthcare organizations. Most recently Mike's firm has worked with many healthcare organizations as they plan and adapt to changes in the industry as a result of the federal and state legislation. Mike has always questioned regulatory changes and regulator interpretations of the regulations. Recently Mike challenged CMS Region X's interpretation of several critical access hospital regulations to find that no definitive answer exists and the issue was finally referred to CMS Central for further resolution. He has challenged a neighboring state's ability to eliminate rural health clinic payments and worked with several rural health clinics in Idaho to ensure that their new Medicaid prospective payments rates were computed correctly. Mike has also tried to look outside the box. He recently pioneered a nursing home - swing bed conversion program that has allowed critical access hospitals in another state to bridge the gap between nursing home cost and Medicaid nursing home payments through higher Medicare reimbursement. Mike was recently elected to the National Rural Health Association Policy Board. Previously, Mike was the treasurer of the Washington Rural Health Association for six years, co-founder of the Rural Health Clinic Association of Washington, served on the Washington Office of Community and Rural Health critical access hospital planning committee, the Washington State Hospital Association Medicaid critical access hospital committee, and many other worthwhile causes.
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