Healthy Decisions

Linda D. Henman, Ph.D., the Decision Catalyst®, is one of those rare experts who can say she’s an advisor, consultant, speaker, and author. For more than 40 years, she has worked with senior leaders in mid-sized companies with revenues of about $30 million and with executives of huge companies that gross more than $30 billion, like Tyson Foods. Linda was one of eight succession planning experts who worked directly with John Tyson after his company acquired International Beef Products, one of the most successful acquisitions of the 21st century. Some of her major healthcare clients include Barnes Jewish Hospital, St. John’s Mercy Health Care, SSM Healthcare, The Clinical Laboratory Management Association, Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital, Banner Health, and Christian Horizons. In all cases, Linda helps those in the C-suite make decisions they have to get right because they just can’t afford to get them wrong. Executives like John Tyson hire her to help make sure a merger or acquisition goes smoothly. Or the board of directors might hire Linda to help them select a new CEO, or a senior leader might need Linda’s help in formulating an aggressive growth strategy. In her more than 40 years in business, she has never had a deal fail. That means her clients made money after the M & A deal; the CEO she recommended stayed in place and succeeded; and the growth strategy helped the company expand as much as they aspired to. Linda owes her success to her ability to influence the pivotal decisions that ultimately explain a company’s success. For example, too often leaders approach an M & A deal from a technical perspective, forgetting that people and culture clashes will often cause a deal’s demise. Or, when selecting a new CEO, the current CEO often hires a clone, even if the company of the future will need someone significantly different. When setting strategy, too often companies do more of what they’ve always done, which seldom works either. Linda takes a different approach. By combining her experience as an organizational consultant with her advanced education in business and psychology, she offers her clients solutions that are pragmatic in their approach and sound in their foundation. She surrounds herself with like-minded colleagues in the Million Dollar Consultants’ Hall of Fame, the National Speakers Association, and the National Association of Corporate Directors from whom she received the designation of Director of Professionalism. Deborah J. Perkins, FACHE, joined Henman Performance Group in 2021 to provide leading-edge financial and operational consulting for hospitals, healthcare institutions, and all providers of patient care. For more than four decades she has worked with large hospital chains like Banner Medical Health System in Arizona and the University of Maryland Medical System and smaller hospitals in the Midwest like Franklin Hospital in Benton, Illinois, resulting in millions of dollars of cost-saving changes. Debbie specializes in making sure clients don’t leave money on the table for services for which they should have been paid if the proper documentation had been completed. That means she quickly identifies both revenue growth opportunities and reimbursement threats. As a trusted advisor, Debbie has helped hospital executives with decisions about margin improvement, case mix, reducing denials, and increasing physician and patient satisfaction. By assisting CEOs in developing strategies to maximize revenue, her clients have been able to optimize clinical documentation and coding practices. Debbie received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Education from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a Bachelor of Arts in Health Information Administration from Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, where she also qualified for the Registered Health Information Administration (RHIA) certification, and an MBA from Pepperdine. She holds the designation of Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives and the American Health Information Management Association. She is also a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality. Her academic credentials, continuing education, and experience equip Debbie to increase each hospital’s case-mix, resulting in millions of dollars of improved revenue, reduce denials below the state average, improve clinical documentation so facilities are paid what they are owed, and implement effective Clinical Documentation Integrity programs to include internal and external audits. Her past performance proves her commitment to empowering hospital executives to achieve their boldest vision through dramatic strategies. Her processes and procedures provide a framework for uncovering every cost-saving opportunity, thereby improving the financial health of the hospital so it can continue to offer exceptional patient care.