The CSHA Nominations Committee reports the following slate of candidates for the 2023-2024 Board of Directors:

You are voting for the President-Elect and five Directors at Large. The Chief Financial Officer is appointed by the Board of Directors and does not require a vote of the membership. For your information, current President-Elect Ben Durie will assume the position of President, and current President, Marty Knutson, will remain on the board as Immediate Past-President. Terms begin as of the date of the 2023 Annual Meeting and Spring Seminar dinner, May 6, 2023.

Please click here to complete your ballot or paste the following URL into the address field of your browser: www.surveymonkey.com/r/23-24_csha_bodelections. Responses received after January 24, 2023, will not be counted.

Sincerely,

Marty Knutson, Chair
CSHA Nominating Committee

Candidate Information

Brandie Gasper — President-Elect

Brandie Gasper is Deputy General Counsel at Molina Healthcare, Inc. At Molina Healthcare, Brandie oversees legal issues pertaining to health plan operations for various states and lines of business. Brandie also assists with the management of the legal department.

Prior to joining Molina Healthcare, Brandie was Senior Counsel at Locke Lord, LLP. Before that, Brandie was a partner at the law firm of Klein DeNatale Golder. While at these firms, Brandie represented both health plans and health care providers on all matters of health law. Brandie received her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law and her B.A. from the Ohio State University. Brandie serves as Chair of the CSHA Education Committee, is a director on the board of CSHA, and is CSHA’s current CFO.

Brendan Sanchez - Chief Financial Officer

Brendan Sanchez is an Assistant General Counsel in The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) Office of the General Counsel. Brendan’s practice focuses on health care regulatory matters, including medical affairs, privacy, quality assurance, peer review, and physician wellbeing. In his role, Brendan provides strategic and operational counsel to TPMG executive leadership, TPMG regional departments, and physician leads across various service lines.

Prior to joining TPMG, Brendan worked in private practice and served as Assistant Regional Counsel for the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of General Counsel. Brendan received his JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law and his BA from the University of California, Berkeley. Brendan currently serves on the CSHA Board of Directors and the CSHA Publications Committee.

Michael Dowell — Director at Large (2nd Term)

Mr. Dowell practices in the areas of healthcare, regulatory, and corporate law. With more than 30 years of experience, he represents clients in a variety of sectors within the healthcare industry, including federally qualified health centers, managed care plans, Medicaid Managed Care Plans, Medicare Advantage Plans, PACE Programs, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, retail pharmacies, long-term care pharmacies, specialty pharmacies, compounding pharmacies, mail order pharmacies, wholesale drug distributors, hospitals, health systems, long-term care providers, physician organizations, management companies, and ancillary service providers.

Mr. Dowell provides advice and counsel to clients regarding a variety of corporate and contractual transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, affiliations, licensing, financing and services-related transactions. He also advises clients in federal and state fraud and abuse matters, compliance program development, governmental audits and investigations, Medicare, Medicaid, HIPAA and data privacy, meaningful use of electronic medical records, telemedicine and telehealth, digital health, value-based payments, pay-for-performance, concierge medicine, and managed care law.

Karen S. Kim — Director at Large (1st Term)

Karen is the Vice President of Appeals Services at Toyon Associates, Inc., one of the most experienced healthcare financial consulting firms in the nation. She advises healthcare organizations on a broad range of issues related to Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement matters, including various types of cost report audits, addressing both underpayment and overpayment issues, and navigating administrative and judicial appeals of payments. Her clients range from sole community hospitals to large multi-state healthcare systems. 

Prior to joining Toyon Associates, Inc., Karen was a healthcare law attorney at Murphy Austin Adams Shoenfeld LLP in Sacramento, where she advised and represented healthcare providers in litigation and compliance with respect to managed care payment disputes, Medicare and Medi-Cal reimbursement appeals, HIPAA, anti-kickback statute, and Stark Law compliance.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Karen served as Press Secretary to the California Assembly Majority Leader and former Assembly Health Committee Chair and also worked as a reporter for the community news division of the Los Angeles Times. She received her JD from University of California, Davis School of Law and her BS in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She currently serves on the CSHA Diversity Task Force. 

Melanie Neumeyer — Director at Large (2nd Term)

Melanie Neumeyer works at Sutter Health where she provides Operational and Physician Contracting support to various hospitals across the Valley and Bay Areas.

She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Michigan in 2008 and her J. D. from the University of California –Davis in 2012.

Prior to her time at Sutter, Melanie was with the California Department of Public Health and the California Medical Association.

Joel Richlin — Director at Large (1st Term)

Joel Richlin is the Vice President & General Counsel for Prime Healthcare. Prime Healthcare is an award-winning health system operating 45 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient locations in 14 states, providing over 2.6 million patient visits annually. It is one of the nation’s leading health systems with nearly 50,000 employees and physicians dedicated to providing the highest quality healthcare. 

Mr. Richlin joined Prime Healthcare in 2017 as Senior Litigation Counsel and in 2018 he was promoted to Deputy General Counsel, ultimately named VP & General Counsel in 2020. Prior to joining Prime Healthcare, Mr. Richlin served as Senior Counsel with Foley & Lardner LLP, an international law firm with a leading healthcare practice. Mr. Richlin began his legal career by completing judicial clerkships in both the U.S. District Court and U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, working under the guidance of three federal judges. He has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law for over a decade at Loyola Law School Los Angeles, where he teaches courses on advanced written and oral advocacy.

Mr. Richlin is a Vice Chair of Educational Programming for the American Health Law Association and regularly speaks on health law topics across the nation. He has also been recognized by the Los Angeles Business Journal for the last several years as a “Leader in Law.”

Mr. Richlin is a cum laude graduate from Loyola Law School Los Angeles, where he was an Editor of the Law Review. Mr. Richlin received his Bachelor of Arts in Economics with honors from Northwestern University in Illinois.

Glenda Zarbock — Director at Large (2nd Term)

Glenda Zarbock is a Partner in the San Francisco office of Hanson Bridgett LLP. Glenda specializes in advising medical staffs, medical groups, and hospitals on a full range of credentialing, peer review, and quality assurance topics. She advises medical staffs on investigations and developing corrective action plans and recommendations. Glenda has successfully represented numerous medical staffs in formal hearings involving credentialing and peer review actions. She also serves in the role of hearing officer for judicial review committee hearings and for appeals to hospital boards. As a litigator, Glenda defends hospitals, medical staffs, and medical staff leaders in civil litigation arising from peer review activities.

Glenda has also represented health care providers and senior care communities in administrative proceedings and litigation in a wide array of matters. She has handled appeals of regulatory citations, deficiencies, and licensure actions, as well as lawsuits alleging professional negligence, elder abuse, wrongful death, fraud, and breach of contract. Glenda handles all phases of litigation: discovery, law and motion practice, mediation, arbitration, administrative hearings, trials, writs and appeals.

Questions?

Email CSHA at info@csha.info