The IHS Team of Experts

 
 
 

Thomas G. Goddard, JD, PhD

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Thomas G. Goddard, PhD, JD, the founder and CEO of Integral Healthcare Solutions, has more than 40 years of experience in law, health, insurance policy research, and management consulting. His practice focuses on helping healthcare and pharmacy-related organizations with accreditation, particularly URAC, NCQA, VIPPS, and ACHC, as well as healthcare compliance issues. In the last decade, Dr. Goddard has participated as a consultant in over 250 accreditation processes with applicants’ accreditation.

Before going into health care consulting, Dr. Goddard was Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of URAC. While at URAC and more recently as a consultant to URAC, he served on accreditation review teams of more than 200 HMOs, PPOs, and health Web sites. In addition, Dr. Goddard served as the Project Manager in URAC's successful effort to obtain deemed status as an accreditation organization (AO) from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Dr. Goddard also has served as:

  • Vice President and General Counsel of NYLCare Health Plans of the Mid-Atlantic;

  • Counsel for Government and Media Relations for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners;

  • President and CEO of the Goddard Public Affairs Corporation; and

  • Executive Director of the Alliance for Consumer Rights.

Dr. Goddard received his B.A. in political science, his law degree from the University of Arizona, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology from George Mason University. His doctoral dissertation was on physician decision-making.

 
 
 

Maureen Plumstead, RN, MBA, CPHQ, PCMH CCE

Senior NCQA Consultant

Maureen Plumstead, RN, MBA, CPHQ, PCMH CCE, has over 25 years of experience in quality, compliance, accreditation, and licensing leadership roles. She has held corporate positions in national health systems where she implemented an NCQA review process that fostered collaboration, sharing, and successful NCQA surveys. She has held leadership and consulting positions in large medical centers and small regional hospitals, ambulatory care facilities, and managed care organizations.

Maureen has been a Surveyor for the National Committee of Quality Assurance (NCQA) since 1996. In this role she has surveyed national and regional health plans for commercial, Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace product lines. She has also reviewed and consulted to organizations seeking accreditation in Managed Behavioral Health, Credentialing Organizations, Case Management, Disease Management, Multicultural Health Care, Wellness Programs, Physician Organizations, Long-Term Services and Support, and Patient Centered Medical Homes.

Prior to her managed care positions, she held clinical leadership roles, supervising multiple departments in national health systems. She has led medical centers in the achievement of successful reviews by The Joint Commission (TJC), Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC).

Maureen holds a Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN) and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) with a focus on healthcare operations. She holds an active license as a Registered Nurse in the state of California. She is certified as a professional in healthcare quality (CPHQ) and patient centered medical homes (PCMH CCE). She has received specialized training from the Institute of Healthcare Quality (IHI) which led her to introducing the collaborative model to hospitals across the state of California. She has served on committees for the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) and on the board for the California Association for Healthcare Quality.

She has a proven track record of excellence and is enthusiastic and committed to the success of the organizations that she serves.

 
 
 
 
 

Evelyn B. Burde, BSN, MBA

Consultant

For nearly 20 years, Evelyn Burde has brought her blend of nursing and business experience to a variety of settings in the managed care and healthcare provider worlds. She has served as a clinical nurse and as a nurse coordinator in hospital, long-term care, and home health settings. In addition, she served as a claims examiner for Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and a senior healthcare consultant specializing in Medicare and physician practice operations. More recently, she served as coordinator of clinical resource management at a major university medical center, where she coordinated medical management, QA, and risk management programs.

She gained extensive experience in utilization management and patient care management. At that same medical center, she was promoted to a position from which she oversaw the clinical resource management program, including allocation of personnel to cover all clinical services at the medical center and the integration of the social work department. She also developed and implemented a case management information system and handled appeals of denials by third party payors. Ms. Burde also has recent experience working at a health care services company that automates the insurance claim reimbursement process for consumers. Her experience there included the development of coding, billing, and reimbursement materials for staff and customers, as well as testing solutions for potential customers.

 
 
 

Jeffrey L. Sutch

Consultant

After serving his country in the United States Air Force as a Non Commissioned Officer in the area of logistics, Jeffrey Sutch entered the world of Healthcare Administration in 1991 for a small Third Party Administrator in Florida. Since 2002 Mr. Sutch has acquired a broad knowledge in the arena of Medicare Advantage operational regulatory adherence including: customer service, claims adjudication, risk assessment and management, auditing and monitoring, policies and procedures, training, grievance and appeals, Special Needs Plans (SNP), sales and marketing, provider oversight, and project management.

Mr. Sutch has extensive experience with State and Federal regulatory auditing requirements and brings strategic solutions to the prevention and mitigation of potential government sanctioning.