JoAnna Younts has worked in the healthcare industry for over thirty years and has provided strategic advisory services as well as expert support in disputes and investigations regarding billing and coding, provider costs, and reimbursement rates.

She has worked with a variety of providers, payers, and government agencies, including hospitals, physicians, commercial health plans, and state correctional health systems on issues including evaluation and modification of reimbursement approaches, billing and claims analysis, reimbursement benchmarking, and fee schedule design.

Ms. Younts has extensive experience in hospital reimbursement. 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 (OPPS).

She also has special expertise in ancillary provider contracting and reimbursement, including ambulatory surgery centers, freestanding dialysis centers, and skilled nursing facilities, as well as out-of-network reimbursement issues. She has advised in the development of reimbursement methodologies for out-of-network hospitals and ancillary providers.  For providers, Ms. Younts has provided consulting support on a variety of reimbursement issues as well as contract modeling and impact analyses.

In disputes and investigations, Ms. Younts has served as a privileged expert on billing, coding, and reimbursement issues related to hospitals, laboratory testing, dialysis, and physician-administered drugs. She also serves as an expert on the reasonable value of healthcare services in personal injury cases.

Employment History

Navigant Consulting
Director
Associate director

Independent Consultant
Selected clients: Watson Wyatt Worldwide, Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Mid Carolina Cardiology
Director, Patient Outcomes

Premier, Inc.
Manager

Center for Health Policy Studies
Senior research associate

Areas of Expertise

Education

George Washington University
MBA, Finance

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
BA, Mathematics and Economics

Recognition

Beta Gamma Sigma Business School Honor Society
George Washington University

Phi Eta Sigma Freshman Honor Society
UNC-Chapel Hill