JoAnna Younts has worked in the health care industry for over 20 years, specializing in provider contracting, reimbursement, rate development, and cost analysis. She has worked with a variety of providers, payors, and government agencies, including hospitals, physicians, commercial health plans, and state correctional health systems, and has assisted clients with claims analysis, rate setting, health planning, program evaluations, as well as cost and outcomes management studies.

Ms. Younts has assisted a number of commercial health plans, including Blue Cross Blue Shield plans, with provider reimbursement strategies, fee schedule development, reimbursement benchmarking, and payment system design. She assisted the federal government on the original resource costing study that formed the basis for ambulatory payment classifications used in the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System. She also has special expertise in ancillary provider contracting, including ambulatory surgery centers, freestanding dialysis centers, and skilled nursing facilities, as well as out-of-network reimbursement. She has assisted in the development reimbursement methodologies for out-of-network hospitals as well as ancillary providers.

Ms. Younts has also worked with correctional health systems. She assisted one of the largest correctional health systems in the United States in an assessment of contracting approaches and claims payment processes, as well as the development of new reimbursement approaches for hospital and physician services. For another state correctional health system, she developed a cost model and capitation rates for use in contract negotiations with providers, as well cost projections and carve-out rates.

For providers, Ms. Younts has assisted in contract modeling and negotiation, including financial modeling, and contract reviews for hospitals renegotiating commercial payor contracts. Ms. Younts has also managed several cost and reimbursement analytics projects for pharmaceutical and medical device companies and has developed cost and cost-effectiveness models for a number of medical devices and drugs.  

Education

• George Washington University
  MBA, Finance and Health Care Administration, 1995
  
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  B.A., Mathematics and Economics, 1989

Employment History

• Navigant Consulting
  Director
  2008 - 2010
  Associate Director
  2002 - 2008
• Independent Consultant Consultant (selected clients: Watson Wyatt Worldwide, Cleveland Clinic Foundation)
  1998 - 2002
• Mid Carolina Cardiology
  Director, Patient Outcomes
  1996 - 1998
  Premier Manager
  1995 - 1996
• Center for Health Policy Studies
  Senior Research Associate
  1989 - 1995

Honors

• Beta Gamma Sigma Business School Honor Society
  George Washington University, 1996
• Phi Eta Sigma Freshman Honor Society
  UNC-Chapel Hill, 1986