Our Team

Lindsey Artola

Owner and President

Lindsey provides overall firm leadership and strategic guidance to payors, providers, and associations to drive growth and retention strategies, bridge the divide between payor and provider, as well as enhance communication and engagement with members, providers, and communities.

With over 25 years experience, many at the C-suite level, in healthcare policy, regulation, reimbursement, and managed care programs for providers and payors, Lindsey knows first-hand the challenges and successes of the industry and has employed the expertise she learned in previous roles to tackle client problems and provide meaningful solutions that create impact.

Prior to Sage, Lindsey was Vice President of External Affairs at IlliniCare Health where she was responsible for all Medicaid policy/ government relations activities, community relations and communications. Lindsey also served as Chief External Affairs Officer for Presence Health, Illinois’ largest Medicaid provider, where she led the system’s Medicaid Steering Committee and was responsible for government relations, community outreach and engagement, and external partnerships across all of Illinois.

Angela Haggard

Senior Vice President

Angela’s deep understanding of provider and payor operations is critical for identifying gaps and efficiencies in workstreams and developing solutions to improve overall operations. She is a proven health care executive with over 20 years in a variety of roles in both the provider and payor sectors.

Prior to joining Sage, Angela was COO, Senior Vice President of Operations and Product Development at IlliniCare Health. In this role she had leadership responsibility for all operational functions, network development, care management and plan growth. She was instrumental in delivering the plan’s operational turnaround. Angela also served as System Service Line Vice President of Medicaid and Community Health Strategy for Presence Health, one of Illinois’ largest provider of Medicaid services, where she was a transformational leader who activated the health system’s vision to improve the health of all the communities served. As part of this activation strategy, she led the RFP award from the state of Illinois and successfully implemented the Presence Health Accountable Care Entity designed to manage the care of the system’s managed Medicaid population.

Kym Ferguson

Vice President

Kym directs the firm’s work in the areas of health plan operations, startup implementations, strategic planning, compliance and operational audits.  She is a driven health care executive serving the industry for over 25 years in a variety of roles in both the provider and payor sectors.

Prior to joining Sage, Kym was a Senior Consultant at MMC 20/20 Inc., one of the industry leaders in Medicare and Medicaid Managed Care Consulting.  In her 14 years at MMC 20/20 Kym assisted over 27 Health Plans navigate the roll out of Balanced Budget Act and implementation of Medicare Part D. She directed large scale product implementations and expansions to companywide system integrations.  Kym has a proven track record for creating operational efficiencies and maximizing revenue realization opportunities to bring profitability to the bottom line at her clients.

Prior to MMC, Kym served as Vice President of Medicare Operations at United Health Group, once of the largest players in the payor sector.  In this role she was responsible for the start-up of Medicare Advantage Plans from application to launch and was accountable for bottom line profitability of the Medicare and Medicaid lines of business. Kym had direct accountability for the development of provider networks and reimbursement strategies, vendor integration, sales and marketing, enrollment, billing, claims and customer service operational functions.

Ann Cahill

Vice President

Ann has over 15 years of clinical experience and over 20 years in managed care, including work with commercial and government programs. Ann is an experienced clinical executive with strong communication skills and proven expertise in program implementation, team building, and leadership.

Prior to joining Sage, she served as Vice President of Clinical Operations and Population Health for Meridian Health, focusing on clinical operations and outcomes for Medicaid, Medicare, and Market Place membership.  Ann also previously held leadership roles at Oak Street Health, Centene and Cigna. In these roles Ann had responsibility and oversight of care management, utilization management, quality, and LTSS services with a focus on program implementation and improvement.

Becky Offill

Senior Director

Becky brings more than 20 years of experience to lead strategic communication efforts and provide project management oversight for government-sponsored health care programs.

Becky is a communications professional with experience in project management, strategic program planning/counsel, media relations, issues management, crisis communications and event planning.

Prior to joining Sage, Becky served as a freelance public relations consultant where among other projects, she served as an extension of the communications team at national non-profit, Easterseals. While in this role, Becky created, implemented, and disseminated targeted program key messages and supported the organizations’ network of spokespersons, experts, and marketing representatives in communities across the country. Prior to freelancing, Becky worked at two of Chicago’s largest public relations agencies (Edelman and Weber Shandwick) focusing on consumer public relations for brands such as Butterball Turkey, Oscar Mayer, and Kraft.

Patrick Briody

Senior Director

Within Patrick’s current client portfolio, he leads efforts in the areas of strategy development (payor, provider, and community organizations), quality improvement, data and analytics, and general project/program management.

Prior to Sage, Patrick was the System Director of Clinical Integration at Rochester Regional Health (RRH), a $2B+ integrated health system in Rochester, New York. There, he directed and co-designed their efforts related to Clinical Optimization, a system strategy focused on reducing avoidable variation in care through clinical integration and the implementation of evidence-based standards of care. In addition to the Clinical Optimization program, Patrick also led the design and management of RRH’s Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Advanced program, an innovative value-based care program for Medicare patients. He also led the design, planning, and operationalization of the first Long-Term Acute Care Hospital (LTACH) within RRH, and only the second LTACH in New York State.

Prior to RRH, Patrick worked as a Performance Consultant with Presence Health (now part of AMITA Health). During his time there, he led the BPCI program, facilitated the development of a Clinical Leadership Council, and led several Care Coordination teams to design and implement population health-related initiatives.

Kerri Lanum

Director

Kerri is an experienced healthcare leader with over 20 years in the healthcare industry. Kerri is passionate about prevention to improve patient outcomes with a demonstrated ability in establishing and maintaining effective, collaborative relationships with Physicians and other clinical staff. She is a Quality Improvement SME knowledgeable in CMS, NCQA, HEDIS measures and performance improvement strategies such as Lean, Agile, and PDSA.

In addition, she has demonstrated success for healthcare organizations in value-based care models such as ACOs, MSSP, Direct Contracting, Primary Care First & ACO Reach. Kerri is a certified Lean Sig Sigma Green Belt, Certified in Health Innovation & Implementation Science and a PHD candidate with her research focused on self-management of chronic disease. Kerri previously worked as a Quality Improvement consultant at Stanford Healthcare and other large healthcare systems in both Quality Improvement and Clinical Informatics. Kerri was also part of the CMS Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative (TCPI) that saved Government & Commercial payers over 1 billion dollars.

Hetel Shah

Director

Hetal works with community-based healthcare organizations to provide solutions and strategies focused on social determinants of health, health education, community engagement and outreach, and social media.  She is an experienced public health and community engagement professional with 10 years of experience working with community-based organizations, population health, and health plans.

Prior to joining Sage, she was Strategy Lead at PatientPoint, a leader in point of care and remote patient technologies.  As a Strategy Lead, Hetal created partnerships with 100+ non-profit and advocacy organizations to create digital health education for patients and providers.  Hetal managed Social Media accounts, creating bespoke as well as partnered content. Prior to PatientPoint, Hetal was the Community and Stakeholder Engagement Specialist for IlliniCare Health, one of Illinois’ leading Medicaid managed care plans.  In this role she had leadership responsibility for community outreach, stakeholder engagement, and program development for both Medicaid and Marketplace lines of business.

Evan Munch

Director

Evan provides strategic communications expertise to clients — partnering with health plans, providers, and associations to shape tailored messages and strategies that deliver results. He has more than a decade of marketing experience in the industry, working with health systems and providers of all sizes.

Prior to joining Sage, Evan directed advancement communications for Rush University System for Health (RUSH), a $3B+ academic health system anchored by RUSH University Medical Center in Chicago. At RUSH, Evan collaborated with clinicians, researchers, faculty and executives to create a wide variety of internal and external communications in support of the health system’s strategic initiatives. He was integral in the development of RUSH’s most recent $750 million philanthropic campaign and marketing of the campaign’s key priorities, such as the 2021 establishment of the RUSH BMO Institute for Health Equity. Before RUSH, Evan guided various development communications activities for Northwestern Medicine.

Gabriela Montoya

Consulting Associate

Gabriela brings over 10 years of experience navigating complex Medicare and Medicaid client cases. Prior to joining Sage, she was the Manager of Medicare Services at a healthcare tech startup and assisted with development and implementation of programs.

She also worked at the Illinois Area Agency on Aging where she led trainings, conferences, and policy research in collaboration with some of Chicago’s top hospital systems, universities, and community agencies. She also assisted on pilot program projects with CMS and the State of Illinois.