Meet our Speakers

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Jason Gargotto

Director, Network Adequacy and Governance, Humana

Jason Gargotto is the Director of Network Adequacy and Governance at Humana. In his current role he oversees analytics, governance and implementation procedures in support of network build, maintenance and strategy.

Jason has 22 years of Healthcare experience, most of it focused on provider networks. Prior to his current role, Jason led Humana’s Physician Performance Management department, which focused on developing programs to leverage efficiency and effectiveness measures in the provider network space. Jason launched Humana’s Care Highlight^™ program, a first of its kind transparency program aimed at the Medicare Advantage population. Jason also has years of experience in direct provider contracting, contract maintenance, contract loading, provider call operations, and financial modelling.

Jason lives in Louisville with his 2 daughters, and his dog Lily.

Vision Quest Sessions

Concurrent Sessions — Executive Insights
Wednesday, May 20 — 10:45 a.m.

A National Perspective: Network Data, Regulatory Realities & the AI Opportunity

The rules are changing. Health plans that treat provider network intelligence as a back-office function will be left behind.

Join two Senior Directors from leading national health plans as they get candid about the challenges reshaping how plans build, manage, and compete on their networks — regulatory trends you need to be tracking, why foundational data is now both a member experience driver and a true competitive edge, and the honest conversation about where AI is actually delivering in provider network management. It’s peer-level insight from leaders who are living it.

Michael Conway

Colorado Insurance Commissioner
Division of Insurance, Department of Regulatory Agencies

Michael Conway was appointed as Colorado Insurance Commissioner by Governor Jared Polis on December 21, 2018, and was confirmed to this position by the Colorado State Senate on January 22, 2019. Prior to this, Conway served as interim Commissioner, a position he was appointed to by Governor Hickenlooper in January 2018. As Commissioner, Conway serves as the chief executive of the Division of Insurance and oversees the regulation of the insurance industry in Colorado. His role brings together consumers, the insurance industry and other stakeholders to create an inclusive, firm and fair regulatory approach to all lines of insurance such as auto, health, homeowner, life, property and casualty, title and workers’ compensation.

Prior to his appointment, Conway served as the Division of Insurance Deputy Commissioner for Consumer and Compliance Services since March 2016. In this time, he was instrumental in developing and guiding the Division’s strategies regarding health insurance during what was a tumultuous time for that industry in Colorado and the nation. He advised the previous Commissioner and the Governor’s staff regarding the possible implications of federal changes to the regulation of health insurance here in Colorado.

Conway’s duties also entailed appearing before state legislative committees to advocate for the Division’s positions regarding insurance and its regulation. He cultivated relationships with consumer groups and the insurance industry to create a regulatory environment that helped Colorado consumers but was a fair, level playing field for the industry. He also worked within the Division to establish objectives that provided for better protection of insurance consumers.

Before joining the Division, Conway was an assistant Attorney General for the Colorado State Attorney General’s Office from 2010 to 2016, where he represented the Division of Insurance in all facets of the regulation of the insurance industry including mergers and acquisitions of insurance companies, insurer rehabilitation/liquidation, and producer and company licensure litigation. He served three Commissioners of Insurance during that time. While in the Attorney General’s Office, he worked with the Colorado Attorney General Pro Bono Family Law Clinic, advising clients on matters of divorce and child custody.

Conway has also worked as an attorney for Colorado Legal Services, advocating for indigent clients regarding housing rights, homelessness prevention, evictions and subsidized housing.

With the exception of three years he spent in Miami for law school, Conway has called Colorado home for nearly 20 years since moving to the state to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Jason C. Goldwater

President & Chief Operating Officer for Laurel Health Advisors, LLC

Jason C. Goldwater is currently the President and Chief Operating Officer for Laurel Health Advisors, LLC, a small-women owned health care consultancy focusing on health care innovation, health care quality measurement, and health equity Mr. Goldwater has been in the field of health information technology (health IT) for 26 years and has led a number of projects on the utilization of health IT for improved health care delivery. He has been involved in the field of telehealth for the past seven years, having initially evaluated telehealth services across large urban and rural health networks as part of a peer-review panel for the Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCN) sponsored by the Health Care Resources and Services Administration. Mr. Goldwater also served as a Principal Investigator for a grant funded by the California HealthCare Foundation on the use of telehealth modalities for chronic disease care and care coordination. He also served as a Principal Investigator for a Commonwealth Fund grant exploring the various ways different health care entities, including payers, hospitals, long-term care networks and others used technology-driven solutions, such as health care, to drive value-based care and chronic disease management. Mr. Goldwater has written extensively in the area of telehealth, and how it can impact populations such as the homeless and the chronically ill. He also serves as a peer reviewer for article on telehealth for journals such as Health Affairs and the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. While at the National Quality Forum (NQF), he served as the Project Director for the development of a measurement framework that provides a foundation for the development of objective measures to assess the value of telehealth and its impact on clinical care.

Mr. Goldwater has also served as a Health IT Project Manager for NORC at the University of Chicago, where he served as the Principal Investigator for a number of projects, including an evaluation of the Strategic Health Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) program and a Study and Report on the Use of Open-Source Health information Technologies for Safety-Net Populations. Mr. Goldwater also worked for SRA International, a systems integrator based in Fairfax, VA, where he led a project to examine the use of clinical decision support systems within the Veterans Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VisTA) EHR system. Mr. Goldwater also spent a decade with the Federal Government, design software applications to assess the quality of care for older adults in nursing homes and hospitals; examining how State Medicaid data could be used for public health; and how to incorporate public health initiatives, such as immunizations, into State Medicaid programs. Mr. Goldwater has both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Emerson College and a Master’s of Public Administration degree from Suffolk University.

William Frist, M.D.

Former Majority Leader, U.S. Senate

Senator William H. Frist, MD, is a nationally recognized heart and lung transplant surgeon, former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, founding partner of Frist Cressey Ventures and special partner and chairman of the Executives Council of the health service investment firm Cressey & Company. He is actively engaged in the business as well as the medical, humanitarian, and philanthropic communities.

As a U.S. Senator representing Tennessee from 1994 -2006 (the first practicing physician elected to the Senate since 1928), Dr. Frist was elected Majority Leader of the Senate, having served fewer total years in Congress than any person chosen to lead that body in history. His leadership was instrumental in the passage of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act that established Medicare Advantage and the historic PEPFAR legislation that provided life-saving treatment globally to 20 million people.

Senator Frist graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Medical School, and completed surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford. As the founder of the Vanderbilt Multi-Organ Transplant Center, he performed over 150 heart and lung transplants, authored over 100 peer-reviewed medical articles, and published seven books on topics such as bioterrorism, transplantation, and leadership. He is board certified in both general and heart surgery. He continues to serve as an adjunct professor of surgery at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

As a leading authority on healthcare, Senator Frist speaks nationally on health reform, government policy, global health, and education reform. In 2019, he launched “A Second Opinion” podcast, which addresses challenging healthcare issues of today from three distinct vantage points: policy, medicine, and innovation.

He is Founder & Chairman of community health collaborative NashvilleHealth, the Tennessee-based State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE), and global health non-profit Hope Through Healing Hands, as well as Co-Chair of the Health Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. His board service includes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and publicly-traded companies Select Medical, Teladoc Health, Smile Direct Club, and GS Acquisitions Holdings Corp II. Senator Frist is one of only two individuals to rank in the top ten of each of the five inaugural Modern Healthcare Magazine annual surveys of the most influential people in healthcare in the United States.

Dr. Frist and his wife Tracy live on a farm in Franklin, Tennessee.

Stephanie Dekemper

Director II & Chief Operating Officer, Amerigroup, TN.

Stephanie has over 30 years of executive-level experience in government-sponsored health programs, and Medicaid managed care. She has expertise in developing initiatives for high-risk minority populations, specifically maternal child health and is a subject matter expert in Health Disparities, Cultural Competency, and Population Health Management SDOH. She has worked with state governments to: develop statewide health disparities initiatives, privatize home and community-based services, plan and design programs for CHIP beneficiaries, and design and launch a statewide chronic disease management program targeting ABD populations.

Before joining Amerigroup of TN, she was the President of a small consulting firm, the Meja Group, a consulting firm supporting managed care organizations, state Medicaid Agencies and International Technical Consulting firms. Throughout her career she worked with law makers to shape Medicaid and health policy. Stephanie’s passion for serving diverse and high-risk populations is best demonstrated during her tenure as Founding President and CEO of the Indiana Minority Health Coalition, succeeded by nine years as Vice President for Centene Corporation where she launched and served as the President of the Centene Foundation for Quality Health Care and moving on to lead as the National VP of Strategic Initiatives to identify and grow minority businesses in the Medicaid space.

Stephanie has an extensive background in program and strategy development to reduce health disparities. Her work in Medicaid includes health plan operations, government relations that included policy analysis, contact management and lobbying. She has managed the daily health plan operations serving over 350,000 members and has consulted on market expansion and program development in Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, Nebraska, Georgia, Louisiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Alabama. She has worked with State Medicaid Agencies and led readiness assessments of managed health plans. She has presented at numerous conferences over her career and featured in Modern Healthcare, for the article “Growing the Ranks in Minority Nurses.” Stephanie is a published author, with several co-authored articles in “CorrectCare” magazine and two published fictional novellas.

She a graduate of Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, Southern Police Institute UofL, Ky and holds numerous certifications. She is the proud mom of six sons and seven grandchildren.

Kate Dzurec

Asst General Counsel, DC Exchange

Katie Dzurec is Assistant General Counsel for the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority. A former regulator, Katie was Senior Advisor to Commissioner Jessica Altman at the Pennsylvania Insurance Department for over four years and served as acting director of the Department’s Bureau of Managed Care as well as acting director of the Health Market Conduct bureau. Focused on healthcare reform and mental health parity, Katie helped lead the Department’s efforts related to health policy and innovation, bringing various state agencies and stakeholders outside of government together to address these critical issues. In addition, Katie directed inter-agency and inter-state collaboration on mental health parity enforcement and compliance efforts. She is regarded as a subject matter expert in the areas of healthcare reform, mental health parity, and health market conduct examinations.

Katie has held various policy and advisory roles across the insurance industry arena, including Vice President of Regulatory and Policy Affairs at Healthsperien, LLC, in Washington, D.C., where she advised national health insurers on policy and business strategy relating to health reform, as well as conducting statutory and regulatory analyses across federal healthcare programs. Prior to that she served as Compliance and Enforcement Division Director, Oversight Group, for the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight in the federal Department of Health and Human Services. She also served as Compliance and Regulatory Affairs Director for Maine Community Health Options, Communications Director for the Maine Bureau of Insurance, and was an assistant research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.

She holds a B.A. degree in linguistics from the University of Oregon, a law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law, and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Maine. She is currently engaged in coursework toward Master of Laws in Insurance at the University of Connecticut. Ms. Dzurec commits much of her free time to running with her family members. She currently splits her time between DC and the Harrisburg-area, where she lives with her daughter, and their dogs, Beezus and Dave the Dog, and a COVID rescue cat called Einstein.

Meet our Speakers

Jason Gargotto

Vision Quest Sessions

Michelle Gielan

Roger Holstein

Grace Arnold