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2009 Conference Hours:
Mon, Mar 9, 9am-5pm

2009 Free Showcase Hours:
Mon, Mar 9, 8am-4pm

HRCI Web site

Co-produced by:
Employee Benefit News Web site

Show Management:
Flagg Management Home Page

 

Speakers

2009 Benefits Health Care New York is the 5th Annual New York
conference and show for benefits and health care technology.


2008 Information Below - Check back for 2009

David Albertson
Editorial Director, Employee Benefit News and Conference Chair
Washington, DC

David Albertson is Editorial Director for SourceMedia's Employee Benefits Group. He has served Employee Benefit News since the magazine's inception in 1986, and in his current position since 1999. David is also responsible for editorial content of the sister magazines Employee Benefit Adviser, Employee Benefit News Canada, the Web site Benefitnews.com, and four e-newsletters. Among industry meetings, he serves as Chairman of his group's annual conference, Benefits Management Forum & Expo and numerous related one-day events. In his 25-year career, David has contributed to nearly two-dozen business publications in the fields of health care, employee benefits and finance.

Wayne Bogosian
President and Managing Director
The PFE Group

Wayne G. Bogosian is founder and President of The PFE Group, Southborough, MA, a leading retirement plan vendor search, investment advisory and financial education consulting firm. Wayne is a frequent public speaker, having conducted more than 1,000 workshops and seminars on topics ranging from retirement planning and investments to corporate downsizing and mergers and acquisitions. He is co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to 401(k) Plans and has been quoted in a variety of publications including Business Week, Employee Benefit News, Reader’s Digest, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and appeared on WCVB, MSNBC, and AOL. Wayne has a B.S. from Northeastern University, an M.B.A. from Suffolk University, is an Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF), and holds various securities licenses.

Audrey Browne
Director of Regulatory Compliance & Contract Procurement
DC 37 Health & Security Plan

Audrey Browne conducts RFPs and negotiates contracts with vendors, professionals, PMBs and others who provide a variety of services for the DC 37 Health & Security Plan. DC 37’s Plan administers a wide array of health & welfare benefits, including a prescription drug benefit, for over 300,000 of its union members and their families. Ms. Browne is also an adjunct professor of law at New York Law School where she recently taught a course on the health-related legal issues surrounding the building and destruction of the World Trade Center towers.

Audrey has published a number of papers on controlling prescription drug prices and she has appeared on cable t.v. and various radio shows regarding the litigation the Plan has undertaken against the pharmaceutical industry. Last year she served as Allocation Counsel for all third party payors in a nationwide class action suit against Serono. That case recently settled for $24 million.

Ms. Browne is a graduate of The Columbus School of Law at Catholic University and has a B.A. degree from The American University. She is admitted to the bars of Pennsylvania & New York as well as various federal and appellate courts.

Linda Cahn
President
Pharmacy Benefit Consultants

Linda Cahn is an attorney specializing in litigation against Pharmacy Benefit Management companies (PBMs), and the founder and President of Pharmacy Benefit Consultants, a nationwide consulting firm with a unique approach to decreasing clients’ prescription coverage costs.

Pharmacy Benefit Consultants focuses on the most important determinant of clients’ prescription coverage costs - the PBM/client contract. Thus, when Pharmacy Benefit Consultants conducts s PBM RFPs for clients, it drafts and negotiates and executes an entirely different form of PBM contract during the RFP. Pharmacy Benefit Consultants typically decreases clients’ costs by 10% to 30%. over clients’ previous year’s costs as a result of its work. For further information about Pharmacy Benefit Consultants’ work, see: www.PharmacyBenefitConsultants.com.

Pharmacy Benefit Consultants is also working to change the prescription coverage marketplace change by disseminating free internet information, including: (i) a two-part video captioned “How to Conduct A Successful PBM RFP”; and (ii) a downloadable Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form to enable entities to eliminate consulting firms’ conflicts of interest. All such information can be accessed through the firm’s website.

Pharmacy Benefit Consultants’ clients have included, among others: Business and union Coalitions, Fortune 50 companies, multiple smaller corporations and unions, insurance companies, and Medicaid HMOs.

Ms. Cahn began working to change the prescription coverage marketplace in 1997, when she initiated the first class action litigation in the country against the two largest PBMs at that time: Merck-Medco Managed Care and PCS Health Systems. During the ten years that followed, she litigated those suits, as well as several others on behalf of individual health plans. Beginning in 1998, Ms. Cahn also began advising federal prosecutors and approximately 20 state attorneys general about PBM practices. Her work directly led to the initiation of government investigations and the filing of government lawsuits against PBMs. Ms. Cahn has also met with, and advised, the staffs of several U.S. Senate Committees about PBM wrongdoing, and has testified before state legislative hearings on legislation to improve the PBM marketplace.

Ms. Cahn has been quoted by numerous national newspapers (copies of articles can be found on the firm website), and she has written two cover story articles for the IFEBP’s Benefits & Compensation Digest (same).

Ms. Cahn is a graduate of Princeton University and Hofstra Law School - both with honors - and a member of the N.Y. and N.J. Bars.

Christopher Calvert
Vice President
Sibson/Segal

Bio to come.

 


 

Michael Crowley
Associate General Counsel
National Futures Association

Michael Crowley is Associate General Counsel for the National Futures Association, the industry wide, self-regulatory organization for the U.S. futures industry. For 15 years, Mike has advised NFA’s benefits committee and senior management on issues concerning retirement and health benefits. In those years, Mr. Crowley has been an integral part of NFA’s efforts to build a comprehensive retirement benefits program with particular focus on aiding the benefit committee in discharging its fiduciary responsibilities in the operation of NFA’s retirement plan. In addition to his work in the benefits arena, Mike heads NFA’s legal department who license all futures professionals in the United States. He also provides legal advice to management on a variety of other issues, including intellectual property, privacy, insurance and contracts.

Mike received his B.A in Political Science from the University of Illinois and his J.D. from Chicago Kent College of Law. Before joining NFA, he prosecuted slumlords in the office of the Cook County, Illinois States Attorney and represented indigent clients at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.

David Hom
Chairman of the Board
Center for Health Value Innovation

David Hom is currently chairman of the non-profit Center for Health Value Innovation, and the former vice president of Strategic Initiatives at Pitney Bowes in Stamford, Connecticut. Since 1992, Mr. Hom has developed a nationally recognized and award-winning integrated health care strategy that focuses on increased employee productivity through disease, disability and demand-management programs. His program design and results have been recognized with various awards including 1998 NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) Corporate Leadership Award, 1997 Washington Business Group on Health Top Five Corporate Programs for Women's Health Care Issues, and 1996 C. Everett Koop Award for Health Care University. Mr. Hom received his undergraduate degree in economics from the State University of New York at Albany and his MBA degree from Hofstra University.

David has co-authored 2 books with Dr. Jack Mahoney, which were released in 2006 and 2007. The first book, Total Value Total Return: Seven Rules for Optimizing Employee Health Benefits for a Healthier and More Productive Workforce , has been read by over 37000 professionals across the country. His second book, BeneFIT Design- the 7 Steps to Value Based Designs has been well received by thousand of decisions makers. The forward was written by former CMS Director, Mark McClellan.

He is a member of the Employer Advisory Boards for the American Management Association and for Compensation and Benefits Review. Mr. Hom also serves as a board member of the Pacific Business Group on Health in San Francisco, CA.

Mr. Hom received his undergraduate degree in economics from the State University of New York at Albany and his MBA degree from Hofstra University.

Dr. Ronald S. Leopold, MD, MBA, MPH
Nat’l Medical Director, VP
MetLife

Ronald S. Leopold, MD, MBA, MPH, is National Medical Director and Vice President of MetLife Employer-Sponsored Benefits Group. He is a Board Certified Occupational Medicine Physician who holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business, the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters in Public Health from Boston University.

Dr. Leopold currently serves as industry thought leader for MetLife Institutional Business focusing on the future of work, health and benefits. His role includes business strategy, sales and market support and new product development. He is a nationally recognized industry public speaker and provides consultation to private and public organizations.

He is the author of A Year in the Life of a Million American Workers, an almanac of absence management and non-occupational disability data that provides a comprehensive picture of one million American workers and their health conditions, illnesses and absence patterns over a one-year period.

James O'Sullivan
Program Manager, Global Health Benefits Operations
IBM Human Resources On-Demand

James (Jim) G. O’Sullivan is a Program Manager in the Health Benefits Operations department within the HR On-Demand organization of IBM. Jim holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Pace University and an MBA from Western Connecticut State University.

Jim started with IBM in 1983 in the Real Estate Division where he held several administrative positions. From 1992 to 1998 Jim served in numerous roles within IBM’s Global Procurement organization, including two assignments on the Corporate Staff. In 1998, Jim became the Operations Manager for the Global Well-being Services organization where he managed the Expense, Capital and Information Technology budget plans, business controls, and served as the Chair of the US Worker’s Compensation Best Practices team.

In April 2003, Jim joined the Health Benefits team with responsibility for the Point-of-Service plan and corresponding business relationships with Aetna, MVP Select Care and United HealthCare. In 2004 he led the redesign of IBM’s self-insured active medical plan options and the competitive evaluation process to source IBM’s active, pre-65 and post-65 self-insured medical plans. The initiative included the installation of a High Deductible Health Plan with Health Savings Account and an EPO. Currently, Jim is managing the relationship with United Health Care and the administration of Medicare Part ‘D’ for IBM. He also represents IBM in the THINC and Arizona HealthCare Quality Measurement Initiatives.

Joan Smyth
Principal
Mercer Health & Benefits

Joan Smyth is a Principal in the New York office of Mercer Health & Benefits and is the Sales Leader for New York City and Long Island. Joan has over 17 years experience in employee benefits, 13 of them with this firm, working with mid-sized employers in the design and implementation of benefit programs. Her focus is on strategy, long term solutions and enhancement of overall benefit offerings, as well as cost control.

Joan came to Mercer from a regional brokerage firm, and was previously with The Equitable Life (now AXA). Before joining the industry, she had experience working in the interior design, fashion and electronics industries, and has first hand knowledge of the challenges facing mid-sized companies.

She graduated from The Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, with honors in English Literature and Language.

Julie Hanson Snyder
Analyst
Forrester Research

Bio to come.

 


 

Rob J. Thurston
President
HR Consulting Group, Inc

Since 1981 has done consulting in Human Resources, Benefits, and Management Strategic Planning. He has give more than 200 conference presentations.

On the Board and Chairman of the Development Committee for NAPES and also For NAPBA, and on the Board of TS Alliance.

President of HR Consulting Group, Inc. since 1986, from 1983-1986 was National Vice President of Fred. S. James Consulting--3rd largest Benefits and brokerage firm in the world. Now owned by Marsh. Responsible for all fee-for-service consulting for 45 offices.

Published 3 Books, 4 videos, numerous tape sets of his presentations, and over 26 articles published.

Received designation as an Accredited Executive in Personnel (AEP) from SHRM- One out of only ninety so accredited by June 1983.

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