Meet the SCP Consulting Services Team

Bruce Adler, a native of Columbus, Ohio, brings 30 years of experience in operational performance advising in all major areas of revenue cycle management to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Partner, he is responsible for leading revenue cycle consulting projects from operational assessments to complete organizational and process improvement initiatives. In this role, he ensures optimal revenue cycle performance for partner healthcare organizations. Most recently, Adler helped a major Northeastern Health System develop and implement a revenue cycle “road map” leading to performance excellence in all areas of the revenue cycle. The focus included access care performance improvement through the development of a shared service model supporting business services. The transformation included process redesign, organizational change, and improved technology utilization. 

He formerly served as National Practice Leader for Revenue Cycle Management at Tatum, LLC. While there, he developed revised access care models, implemented point-of-service collection programs, chaired denial mitigation workgroups, and performed complete revenue cycle transformation projects. He was also a principal at KPMG, where he had national responsibility for revenue cycle management methodology and engagement services.

Adler received his Bachelor of Arts in Social and Behavioral Science from Ohio State University and his Master of Business Administration, Finance from Hofstra University. He spent more than a decade in the Finance and Accounting departments of major hospitals including Gracie Square Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center, and Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.

Bryan Arkwright, a native of Columbus, Ohio, brings 11 years of experience in digital health, telehealth/telemedicine, project management, business development, mHealth, strategic planning, and process improvement to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Consulting Manager, he is responsible for telehealth strategy and operations. In this role, he helps clients develop and deploy future-focused, sustainable strategies and leverage technology to thrive in a value-based environment. He is an avid writer and speaker in the industry and recently published a research paper on telehealth Governance that combines industry best practices for implementing and operating a high quality and sustainable telehealth program. 

He formerly served as Interim Corporate Director of telehealth for a large international Children’s Health System and as Director of the Mission Center for telehealth in Asheville, North Carolina. While there, he oversaw the expansion and growth of their telehealth clinical programs, reaching over 44 locations and establishing a comprehensive multiyear telehealth strategic plan. Prior to Mission Health, he served as the Administrator for the Office of telehealth and launched key regional telehealth programs and a multiyear telehealth strategic plan for Wake Forest Baptist Health.

Arkwright received his Bachelor’s degree from Ohio University and a Master of Health Administration from Medical College of Virginia (VCU). He also has a Six Sigma Black Belt certification from the American Society for Quality. In addition to Schumacher Clinical Partners, he serves on the Editorial Board for the peer reviewed digital journal telehealth and Medicine Today and is an Adjunct Faculty Member with the Wake Forest University School of Law where he teaches a course on Telemedicine. 

Stephen Bachman, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, serves as Senior Consultant focusing on revenue cycle transformation initiatives. In his role, he works collaboratively with hospital staff and functional process owners to improve revenue cycle operations as well as deliver solutions to their complex business needs. Bachman has helped clients develop denial mitigation operational processes, including analytics, root cause analysis and implementation of process changes. He has assisted clients in reducing late charges working with clinical departments to identify charge processing barriers, and implement reconciliation controls. His experience includes a background in data analytics, project management, process improvement initiatives, and operational performance.

Bachman received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Georgia College and State University.

Jay Backstrom, a Texas native now living in Arizona, is a healthcare consulting executive with over 23 years of consulting experience focused exclusively in the healthcare provider market. He has extensive experience in helping clients build and sustain successful telehealth programs, which includes: telehealth strategic planning, service line design, program implementation, and optimization of existing telehealth services.

As a Partner with SCP Consulting Services, Backstrom is responsible for leading our telehealth consulting practice and Center of Excellence (COE). He has worked with all types of clients throughout the US, including national health systems, regional health systems, academic and community hospitals, and telehealth service providers.

Prior to joining SCP Consulting Services, he served as the National Healthcare Practice Leader at EMC (now DELL EMC). While there, he successfully helped start-up and build EMC’s healthcare consulting business with a focus in telehealth and medical imaging services. Prior to EMC, Backstrom has held leadership positions at several leading healthcare IT and consulting firms, including Exogen Healthcare, Ernst & Young LLC, GE Healthcare, and First Consulting Group.

Backstrom is a frequent speaker at national healthcare conferences and national webinars and has published multiple articles in the market on telehealth innovations. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Computer Information Systems from Texas State University.  

Linus Diedling, a native of Ohio currently living in South Florida, brings more than 35 years of leadership experience in healthcare operations management, performance improvement, and information technology services to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Executive Vice President, he is responsible for developing and implementing strategic business plans for the consulting business unit, as well as managing the day-to-day operations of Consulting and Optum Physician Advisory Services. 

He has held executive positions with Lutheran Medical Center, KPMG Peat Marwick, HayGroup, First Consulting Group, Endeavor Health Group, Performance Logic, and Healthcare Innovation Partners. Diedling has also held positions with healthcare IT vendors McDonnell Douglas and HealthVision.

Diedling received his B.S. degree in Business Administration and Information Technology from Xavier University Cincinnati, Ohio.

Dr. Kenneth Epstein, a native of New York brings over 30 years of experience in clinical and operational leadership to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Senior Vice President and Group Medical Officer, Dr. Epstein is responsible for overseeing SCP hospitalist practices, education, and quality activities. He applies his extensive experience to hospital medicine consulting engagements through SCP Consulting Services. Prior to ECI Healthcare Partners’ merger with SCP, he served for 7 years as Chief Medical Officer of the Hospitalist Division of ECI Healthcare Partners.

Previously, he served as the president of KRE Consulting, a hospitalist practice management consulting company in Boulder, CO and as director of medical affairs and clinical research at IPC-The Hospitalist Company.

Dr. Epstein received his medical degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University, where he completed his internal medicine residency. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and received his MBA from Temple University.

Bryan Hardy, a native of Atlanta brings over 9 years of experience in healthcare administration and consulting. As a Consulting Manager, Hardy is responsible for and passionate about providing value through leveraging advanced methodologies and technologies to facilitate high performance and growth for health care organizations.

His most recent experience includes making significant contributions to the success of two large scale M&A based integrations by leading the cross-functional (Operations & IT) execution of provider and facility data migration. Previously he contributed to and coordinated between multiple workgroups in preparation for a systematic ICD-10 transition within a large, 13 hospital not-for-profit health system in Virginia.

He formerly served as Manager of Therapeutic Solutions, Inc., where he managed the daily operations of multiple outpatient physical therapy clinics and coordinated closely with senior leadership to drive strategic change initiatives.

Hardy received a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from Georgia State University, where he returned and earned his MBA/MHA. 

Dr. Kenneth Heinrich, a native of Chicago, brings 13 years of experience in emergency department clinical and process improvement experience to his role with Schumacher Clinical Partners. He has worked with more than a dozen emergency departments in a leadership capacity. Between clinical and consulting work, Dr. Heinrich has had the opportunity to observe firsthand the processes in well over 50 ED’s throughout the country of all sizes and types (from rural to urban tertiary care centers). As Group Medical Officer and Medical Director, Dr. Heinrich applies his ED leadership, clinical, and process improvement methodology expertise to client consulting engagements with SCP Consulting Services.

Before joining SCP, Dr. Heinrich started his ED leadership career as Emergency Department Assistant and then Medical Director at MacNaeal Hospital in Berwyn, Illinois. He went on to help found the ECI group of elite traveling physicians and then created the ECI Advisory Group to assist hospitals with clinical and operational process improvement.

Dr. Heinrich received his medical degree from Rush Medical College in Chicago, Illinois and completed his Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He is board-certified by the American Board of Emergency Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and Illinois College of Emergency Physicians.

Jeff Jones, a native of Indiana, brings over 20 years of experience in healthcare technology consulting leadership, strategy, business case planning, service design and deployment to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Director, he is responsible for leading the development of telehealth programs and critical IT projects. Jones has worked with numerous health organizations, including integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers, community hospitals, children’s hospitals, and the Veteran’s Administration. He regularly speaks and writes on telehealth trends and needs.

He formerly held consulting leadership positions with healthcare consulting firms and health IT vendors, including Altarum Institute, Exogen Healthcare, First Consulting Group, EMC Consulting, and GE Healthcare. His professional experience includes leadership of telehealth/telemedicine and enterprise medical imaging consulting engagements, complex program management, and information technology enabled business strategy and process innovation to improve performance across all care settings.

Jones received his Masters of Science from Ball State University and Bachelors in Psychology, also from Ball State University. He is certified as a Project Management Professional and is active in HIMSS and the ATA. He is based at SCP’s Atlanta office. 

David Kesel, a native of Virginia, brings 14 years of experience in Revenue Cycle Management, Project Management, Implementation, and Integration to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Senior Consultant, he provides value added solutions and support to the many challenges that healthcare organizations are faced with. In this role, he strives to ensure that client satisfaction and expectations are exceeded. He recently worked with a client to integrate their revenue cycle practices with that of a new partner which led to more efficiency, standardization, cost savings, and many other synergies.

He formerly served as Patient Access Manager and as Lead Project Coordinator at Parallon Business Solutions. While there, Kesel was responsible for the daily operations of the Patient Access Department as well as leading the operational project management efforts for 27 Hospital EMR implementations spanning three markets. 

Kesel completed his undergraduate work at Virginia Commonwealth University and earned his MBA from Averett University. He is also an active member of the Florida Chapter of the Healthcare Financial Management Association. He is based at SCP’s Atlanta office.

Laurie Leonard brings over 20 years of experience in healthcare consulting and leadership, with a background in the post-acute and home care arena. Her passion is helping health systems and providers such as rehab facilities, home health providers, and others leverage the value of post-acute and home based care by developing the infrastructure and service model to thrive in a value-driven environment.

Leonard has a successful track record of working with others to solve complex, unstructured problems and leading teams to address large-scale operational and strategic change initiatives. She has worked as a consultant and as an operational executive with providers, vendors, and third-party payers, focusing on growth strategy, operational and clinical performance improvement, and compliance and payment integrity.

She began her career in provider relations with the Medicare program (BCBS South Carolina) before joining PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Healthcare Regulatory Group to help providers identify and adopt best practices in documentation, coding, and revenue cycle operations. In that same role, she also led teams of consultants and performed in an advisory capacity to support mergers, acquisitions, and high-profile litigation cases. She led a significant portion of the HIPAA-transition work for Emdeon, directed a strategic system expansion as a vice president with iHealth Technologies, and was responsible for leading the multiyear ICD-10 transition for Cardinal Health at Home. Prior to joining SCP, Leonard served as the Vice President of Audit Strategy for one of the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractors.

Leonard received her Masters Degree in International Business from the University of South Carolina and is proficient in Spanish.  

Monica Leslie, a native of Jacksonville, Florida now living in Mobile, AL, brings more than eight years of experience in operational leadership working across a variety of healthcare settings to her role with SCP Consulting Services. As Senior Consultant, she is responsible for managing and facilitating strategic and operational components of client projects. In this role, she leverages her expertise in telehealth strategy, planning, and implementation, post-acute and transitional care strategy and operations, and project management design and execution.

She formerly served as Director of Operations and Strategy for Ingenios Health, a personalized, preventative healthcare organization that delivers technology-based client services in patient homes. Leslie has also served in leadership roles at Wake Forest Baptist Health and the University of Florida Health. She began her career with an intensive, year-long Executive Mentorship program at Wake Forest Baptist Health.

Leslie received her Master of Health Administration and a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the University of Florida. 

Michael Rhodes, a native of Canton, Ohio, brings 27 years of experience in healthcare finance and revenue cycle to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Senior Manager, Rhodes is responsible for leading revenue cycle consulting projects. In this role, he serves facility clients in all aspects of revenue cycle needs, including patient access, coding, CDM management, and billing and collections. During his time with SCP Consulting Services, he’s led three hospital system conversions and one ED physician group system conversion. He has also served as Interim CFO for a client facility during a system search for new leadership in that position.

Formerly, Rhodes served as Vice President, Revenue Cycle at Adena Health System in Ohio. While there, he led a successful Meditech conversion while maintaining the stream of cash flow. He also redesigned the CDM, including pharmacy, to meet system needs, while meeting contract requirements and maximizing revenues.

Rhodes received two B.S. degrees from the University of Akron, in Accounting and Industrial Management. He is based at based at SCP's Atlanta office.

Bryan Rosenberg, a native of Chicago, serves as a Consultant with Schumacher Clinical Partners. In his role, he works with hospital personnel to implement and monitor projects related to hospital and emergency medicine. His experience includes a background in emergency medicine research, project management, and business development.

Rosenberg received his Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Northwestern University while simultaneously on the pre-medical track.

Rehan Virani, a native of the United Kingdom, brings more than 12 years of experience in the healthcare IT market to his role with SCP Consulting Services. As Consulting Manager, Virani focuses on telehealth/telemedicine, connected care, mHealth, enterprise medical imaging/VNA, health IT planning, and program management. In this role, he applies his extensive expertise in telehealth strategy, planning, and implementation as well as project management design and execution, workflow/process design and improvement, enterprise medical imaging, vendor selection design and execution, and system-wide EMR implementation to consulting engagements with hospitals and health systems. He has been published in several online healthcare trade journals (e.g. Becker’s) and presented at several trade conferences (e.g. American Telemedicine Association).

He formerly served as a senior member of EMC’s healthcare consulting division. At EMC, he worked with team members to build the healthcare practice from the ground up. Prior to EMC, Virani was a senior consultant with the Global Medical Imaging Group (MIG) at McKesson, where he was tasked with building out a new consulting service offering. He was also a consultant at Exogen Healthcare, where he led many healthcare system implementations.

Virani received his Masters in Health Systems and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and an active member of multiple healthcare trade organizations. 

Dr. Oliver Wagner, a native of Germany, brings 30 years of clinical medicine and management consulting and executive strategic and operational healthcare services experience to his role with Schumacher Clinical Partners. As an Affiliate Partner of SCP Consulting Services, he applies and shares his strategic leadership, business development, and clinical expertise to client consulting engagements, including M&A and change management projects. In Europe, Dr. Wagner managed his own business consulting projects for national and international clients for several years. Since 2017, he's served as CMO of zeb Health Care Consulting. Dr. Wagner studied Medicine in Germany, Australia, and South Africa. He received an M.D. and Ph.D. in Medicine from the Ludwig-Maximillian University School of Medicine in Munich, Germany, and has been a member of the German Surgical Society since 1996.

Jo Wetch, a native of Bergen County, New Jersey, now residing in Lafayette, Louisiana, is a registered nurse who brings 30+ years of healthcare experience, including 20 years of progressive hospital medicine and case management leadership and demonstrated success in multiple hospital settings to her role with SCP Consulting Services. As Director, she applies her broad expertise encompassing operational, financial, and regulatory oversight to bridge clinical and financial outcomes. In this role, her collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, advocacy, and customer-service promote the fundamentals of quality patient care and overall satisfaction for the healthcare organizations she serves.

Recently, she served as vice president of care management for SCP, where she partnered with hospital case and utilization management teams to ensure compliance and guide best practice. Before joining SCP, Wetch served as a director of care management for a 500+ bed hospital in Texas, where she was responsible for 29 FTEs who delivered case management, utilization review, social services and clinical documentation integrity services. In addition, she developed a three-physician hospital medicine team and grew it to an eight-member team in less than 18 months. Throughout her tenure as a director, Wetch’s teams were recognized for exceeding outcomes and demonstrating minimal employee turnover.

Wetch received her Masters in Business Administration from the University of Texas, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Minnesota State University Moorhead. She also holds several nursing and case management certifications. She is a content expert panelist in case management for the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) and has recently participated on the Standard Setting team for the Nursing Case Management certification exam.