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Career
Center
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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Cathy
Baxter:
Medical Records/ CNA
Cathy started working for Spoon River HH
in February of 2006. At Spoon River, she is in charge
of data entry; including telephone orders, new sign ups,
recertification’s, and referrals. She also verifies the
payment source for new patients, files, and performs patient
care when needed. Cathy has over 10 years of experience
in the healthcare industry and received a Bachelor’s Degree.
Cathy has a certified nurse assistant certificate and has
worked in health care for 19 years.
Cathy spends her free time
with her family. She has been married for 22 years and has
two children 17 and 21 years old. She loves her 5 pets: 3
cats and 2 dogs. She considers them members of the family.
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Elaine Knox:
Community Education Coordinator 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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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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Norma
St. Clair:
Director of Client Services
I started working for Spoon River Home Health in 1999 as a
home health aide while attending nursing school. I truly
loved working as an aide and had qualms about completing the
nursing program to work as a RN, knowing that my time with
patients would be more limited in a nursing role. After
graduating, I worked in a hospital, but soon came back to
home health so I could practice nursing in a more personal
setting.
In
my free time I enjoy riding the motorcycle with my husband
and spending time with family. We have three grown children
and one grandson.
I also enjoy fellowship with my church family and
recently went on a medical mission trip to the
Dominican Republic.
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Mary
Lou Record |
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Dawn Giacabazi:
Senior Intake Specialist
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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Debbie
Stewart:
Billing Office Manager At Spoon
River, Debbie's responsibilities include: MC billing,
Payroll and managing employees in billing office.
She has 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry. She started with Spoon River Home
Health Care in 1993 as a Certified Nurse Aide and enjoyed
working with the patients in their homes. In 1996 she left
the field and worked as assistant to the administrator of
the newly started Private side of the company. This is where
Debbie began learning about the Office procedures of the
agency and through seminars that she attended, learned
diagnosis coding and MC billing. She left the company in
April of 1998 when her third child was born but returned in
Nov. of 1999 when the Home Health Company she was working
for at that time closed and referred their patients and
office personnel to Spoon River. Debbie thinks this is where
she was always meant to be and she's very happy she was
given the opportunity to return. |
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Brandi Barnes:
Customer Service Specialist
Brandi is assisting with nurse scheduling, referrals, data
entry, and new admissions. She also assists the QA nurse
with OASIS tracking.
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.
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Lisa Goodwin:
Billing Asst. CNS Prg. Asst.
Lisa's job consists of verifying notes for billing, CareLink
coordinator, audit therapy bills, running the print shop,
where we do most of our own forms, and assisting with our
CNA educational facility. She also helps coordinate CNA
in-services and provides instruction.
She has 10 years of experience in the healthcare industry as
well as a Bachelor’s Degree. Lisa started out working as a
homemaker while training to become a CNA. She continued
working in the field for 10 years until being promoted to
billing assistant.
Lisa enjoys collecting frogs, thimbles, and spoons. She
loves to watch NASCAR(Tony Stewart) and WWE(Batista). Her
favorite sports teams are the Chicago Bears and the White
Sox. She also has two wonderful children and a perfect
husband who she loves very much. He also works for SRHHS.
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Charlie
Wilkinson:
Client Service Manager Charlie is the scheduler and
supervisor of the Home Health Aides and Home Care
Assistants. She also works with multiple clients and agencies
to provide intermittent and extended visits, which provide
ADL and home making assistance within their home.
She has been a C.N.A for 40 years. Charlie was one
of the very first employees to be hired by SRHH in 1993.
Prior to getting into management, she did direct patient care
for 30 years. She also has raised 5 children and 2
grandchildren.
Charlie loves a challenge and loves people,
therefore Home Health is perfect for her. Helping people
remain safely in their homes that they love, is a very
special reward! |
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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:
Quality Improvement Coordinator
As the Quality Improvement Coordinator my
tasks include coordinating the development, implementation,
and evaluation of the QI program. My main goals are to
identify trends, prioritize, and recommend improvements
based on best practices in the nursing industry. This
includes education of nursing staff.
I have 10 years of experience in the
healthcare industry, 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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Margo Marliere |
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Lori Staley-Brian:
Client Service Coordinator
Lori has worked with Spoon River Home Health
since December of 2007. As Client Service Coordinator she
schedules Home Health Aides and Home Service Workers. She
also prepares the monthly in-services for the HHA’s & HSW’s.
Lori gained 20 years office management
experience while helping to run a ready mix concrete company
with her parents. She went to State Concrete College where
she became QC/QA Certified. She is also a State Level I & II
Concrete Engineer and Concrete Lab Tech. Since that time
she has owned and operated a western retail store, until
selling out in 2007. Now she is still in western wear and
tack, but sells it from the back of her trailer.
If you want to talk horses, Lori can talk
all day. Lori says that whenever she meets someone she
always gives them a chance and never judges. She spends as
much free time as possible with her family, especially her
granddaughter, Lacie. They love to ride the 5 horses her
husband and she own and spend most weekends camping and
riding.
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Laura Talbot:
Case Manager
I have been employed with SRHH
since June 2008.
I have had over 10 years of experience in the healthcare
industry, and a Bachelor’s Degree. I started my career
as a CNA while I obtained my LPN degree from Carl
Sandburg College in Galesburg. I worked in the hospital
for 2 years as an LPN while I continued my schooling to
become an RN. I worked for a year in intensive care at
St Francis after obtaining my RN.
Nursing runs in my family! Both my mother and
step-mother are nurses so I followed in their footsteps!
I love watching my patients overcome their health
challenges when possible. I really enjoy meeting so many
different people and helping with their individual
situations.
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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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