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Career
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CNA Training Program |
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Meet the Spoon River Home Health Services Team
The SRHHS Team constantly strives to provide clients
with the most professional level of health care in the home, and
keeps the lines of communication open for referrers and payors.
At the same time, our approach has always been to deliver personal
service to all of the people and organizations we serve.
To learn more about our office and field management
staff, check out their bios below.
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Susan Platt - Director of Professional
Services
Susan has been involved with Spoon River Home Health since
1993. Her main role is the “Director of Professional
Services.” As an R.N., she oversees all nursing and therapy-
internally and externally. She communicates and educates on
a daily basis with the staff of SRHHS, therapists, MD
officers, hospital discharge planners, skilled nursing
facilities, senior apartments, all referral sources, and the
clients and their families.
Susan's background is in critical care nursing. She always
formed strong relationships with her patients and their
families, and wondered what happened to them when they left
ICU. It was for this reason, when the opportunity arose, she
went into home health care and chose to open a home health
agency with the help of her mentor and the best nurse she
knows, her mother!
A
friend, on a stressful day in health care, asked her what
her ideal job was. After a lot of thought, she has to admit
she's doing her “ideal” job. She gets to meet some of the
nicest, funniest, sweetest, strangest people in the world.
She loves to hear their stories. She loves to be able to
make a difference in their life. Sometimes in home health we
have the same client for years and sometimes only days but
it is such a privilege to be invited into someone’s home and
life and be able to make a difference.
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Brian
Platt - Administrator Brian manages all of
Spoon River's business activities in the office. He says
that he is lucky because his wife, Susan, manages the
clinical and community education activities. Plus, Brian
says that Spoon River also has a great staff which makes the
business run fairly smoothly. Following
graduation from Western Illinois University, Brian started
working for the Soil Conservation Service and also farming
with his dad. Susan and he had been married for about 1 year
when she started Spoon River Home Health. Being married to a
nurse, having a mother-in –law for a nurse, and having a
grandmother who was a Navy nurse must have qualified Brian
to start helping out with the business side of a homecare
company. After 2 years of helping manage the business, he
became the administrator when Susan slowed down to have
their 2 girls.
Brian likes to ski on the water and snow, as
well as horseback riding. He had the chance to show off his
horses when he acted in the movie Sand Prairie. His
favorite drink is anything that has seen the inside of an
oak barrel for at least 12 years.
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Dawn Giacabazi
Dawn has 13 years medical experience.
Dawn works with Social Services, discharge planners,
physician’s offices, other home care agencies, and
individual’s to coordinate in home services. If what you
need is not what we provide or funding is an issue she uses
many of her contacts in the community to arrange assistance.
Dawn is also responsible for maintaining and scheduling
skilled nursing services.
Dawn says the best part of
her job, “knowing the relief she was able to bring to the
client and or their families & they are receiving the best
possible services available. Dawn is a certified nursing
assistant with 13 years of experience, which began with
Spoon River Home Health Services. Her experience including:
caring for many clients in home health, nursing homes, and
assisted living facilities. Dawn says she thinks she brings
a unique perspective to her job after becoming a client
herself.
Dawn describes herself as
caring, compassionate, and self motivated. Her co-workers
describe her as a perfectionist who never leaves until the
job is done. Dawn enjoys spending time with her family. She
is a wife and mother of 2 children. Her hobbies include
reading, walking, and having fun with her children. She is a
certified scuba diver with 11 years experience. |
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Brenda Ford
- Billing Specialist Brenda has been employed
at SRHH for over 11 years. She prepares the final
billing audit for all Medicare, HMO/Medicare, and insurance
episodes. She works closely with the nursing staff in order
to insure that all documentation required for this process
is received in a timely manner.
Brenda also has over 10 years of experience
in the healthcare industry along with a Bachelor’s Degree.
She has 25 years of experience at previous workplaces in
accounts receivable, accounts payable, inventory control,
job costing, budget preparation, payroll, government payroll
reports, and income preparation, which makes her highly
qualified for this position.
Brenda attempts to read every day. It helps
her relax at the end of a long day. She also enjoys being
outdoors in the summer working in her flower beds and in her
one acre truck patch. She spends as much time as possible
with her two youngest grandchildren, Alex(5) and Austin(3).
They ride bikes, play games, fly kites, fly airplanes, and
ride the golf cart. Never a dull moment! |
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Brandi Barnes - Medical Records Coordinator/
CNA Brandi does lots of data entry including
but not limited to new sign ups, admitting Patients,
entering SOC, transfers and DC oasis, and enter new or
update employee information. She acquires background checks;
creates supply sheets for employees and patients. To top it
off, she handles flu shot billing, and performs patient care
when needed.
Brandi has an Associate in Arts and Science
along with a 3yr degree/diploma in Nursing. She has worked
in healthcare for 6 years.
Brandi describes herself as pleasant to be
around, and always has a good attitude and smile on her
face. On the weekends she enjoys going to the dirt track,
stock car races because her boyfriend drives, as do many of
her friends. She also enjoy athletics, such as Softball and
Basketball. She LOVES watching Nascar Racing and
cheering for #88 Dale Earnheart Jr. Brandi also has a
son who is 2 years old named Braden. He is her world
or rather her world revolves around him. He is very
energetic and outgoing and loves being outside. He also
enjoys going to the stock car races, ballgames and playing
outside. He keeps my life on the go and very interesting
because you never know what will happen next.
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Lex
Walker - IT Director Lex
has been providing leadership for the computing, networking
and communications infrastructure for the entire
organization since 2002. His divisions are responsible
for the design of multi-office networking and
telecommunications infrastructure.
Lex has an Associate’s
degree in Data Processing from a local community college. He
attends various classes and training seminars geared toward
network administration and security. He has 10 years
computer experience and 6 years with Spoon River Home
Health.
He describes himself as
a quiet and easy to talk to person, with a preference for
listening and speaking only when he has something important
to say. He likes to golf, although he doesn’t seem to find
time anymore. He also enjoys bike (motorcycle) rides,
maintaining his property, taking walks and wine making.
Recently he found a local supply of concord grapes and
produced one of the best wines yet. He hopes to further
improve the wine this year. He says that while wine making
doesn’t require a huge amount of time to make, the waiting
for it to mature can be difficult to say the least.
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Becky Welker - Billing Coordinator
As Billing Coordinator my responsibilities include ensuring
that all non-Medicare covered services are billed to the
proper payor source. Spoon River Home Health provides
related home services for those whose care will be
reimbursed under the Department of Aging, Central Illinois
Agency on Aging, Office of Rehabilitative Services,
Department of Health and Family Services (Medicaid), private
insurance (long-term custodial care), HMO/PPO, in addition
to those who pay privately. Other aspects of the Billing
Coordinator position include handling all accounts
receivables, which involves processing and posting payments
received daily to the proper account(s), collection
activities for delinquent account(s), and handling telephone
inquiries.
I have over 15 years combined experience in customer service
related fields wherein I garnered knowledge of collections,
assisted in the compilation of intellect for the purpose of
skip tracing and/or research, advised on different aspects
of loan repayment and varied inquiries. For the purpose of
expanding my knowledge I have taken a myriad of healthcare
and/or billing related courses at a local community college
as well as attended multiple position-related seminars.
Once the work day is over I enjoy spending time with the
terrific friends and family I have been blessed with. Most
weekends are spent going to auctions & flea markets,
reading, heading to the races (dirt-track), and traveling. |
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Mary Ericson
- Patient Care Coordinator
My responsibilities include in-services and
education of the nursing staff. I check over the paperwork
and coding. I also meet with the staff to discuss the
patients and their care needs.
I have 10 years of experience in the
healthcare industry, a Bachelor’s Degree and an Associates
Degree from Blackhawk College in Moline. I have been a RN
for about 15 years and a CNA prior to that. I have a varied
background including hospital, long-term care, and home
care. Home Care is by far my favorite!
My personality fits so well into Home Care!
I really like change and hate routine. Working in Home Care
offers unique, interesting, and challenging situations every
day. I enjoy treating each patient as an individual and
doing whatever possible to have them remain in their home.
I believe the future of Home Care will just continue to
grow! There is so much that can be done in the home that
used to be only done in the hospital. I love to continue to
learn everyday and share that knowledge with my coworkers,
patients, and families.
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Elaine
Knox - Asst. Director of Nursing My
responsibilities include: Phone nurse, client/physician
liaison, medical supplies, flu shot clinics
I have been a nurse since 1968. My
background includes surgical, pediatrics, trachs, vents,
general, bedside nursing and home health.
Everyone thinks I’m from England because I
have an accent. But actually I’m from Maine, although I’ve
lived in Fulton County almost 50 years. I enjoy cooking,
quilting, traveling, and working at SRHH. I love home
health, it is an ever changing field that continually
challenges me. I love the clients, my co-workers physicians
and their staff. Each day is different and I look forward to
each and every day! |
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