40 Under Forty Honors Healthcare Professionals
In addition to Peter DePergola’s selection to the BusinessWest 40 Under Forty (see related story page 9), two other young professionals who work in the healthcare arena were chosen to the class of 2015 as well: Lindsay Doak, director of Education and Marketing at Fazzi Associates, a home-health and hospice consulting and research firm in Northampton; and Dr. Anthony Sarage, podiatric surgeon at Western Massachusetts Podiatric Associates in East Longmeadow.
— Joseph Bednar
Cracking the Code
At a time when the population is getting older and tens of millions of Baby Boomers head into their retirement years, the work Doak is doing is more critical than ever.
Specifically, she designed the National Healthcare Learning Center, an online education-delivery system utilized by healthcare organizations throughout the world. “It has really taken off,” she said. “We have more than 50,000 logins to the center every month, everyone from IT coding to management.”
Her latest initiative is work with community colleges and other institutions to deliver training that will fully certify home-health coders — an important project because of a national shortage of medical coders. The targeted program allows low-income workers the opportunity to move beyond minimum-wage jobs.
“There’s a huge need for coders becaue the code set is changing so much,” she said of the healthcare industry’s move from the ICD-9 standard to ICD-10, set to launch this fall.
In addition, the educational alliances Doak has built at Fazzi with state and national organizations like the National Assoc. for Home Care, the National Physical Therapy Assoc., and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization are helping improve care and reduce rehospitalization for the growing population of American seniors.
“The Baby Boomers are now entering home health care, and with healthcare reform, home health has become a big player to reduce costs and keep people out of hospitals,” she said. “When we can take care of patients at home, we really reduce those costs. And the need for these services is going to expand exponentially.”
Ankle to Toe
Meanwhile, Sarage was intrigued by medicine from his school days. “I always wanted to do something in the medical field — that was always something interesting to me — but there were so many different medical specialties out there.”
What wound up grabbing his interest were the lowly feet — not a part of the body people often think about enough, or at least not as much as they should, especially as they get older or are especially active. As a podiatric surgeon, he treats patients of all kinds, from newborns to geriatric patients.
“There’s a wide variety of things we see on a daily basis, from medical management to surgery to sports medicine. It really is a comprehensive foot and ankle practice,” said Sarage, who performed his residency in reconstructive foot and ankle surgery and has been a partner with the practice for four years.
Sarage also performs surgery at Baystate Medical Center, Baystate Mary Lane Medical Center, and Mercy Medical Center. He has also served as a trustee of the Massachusetts Podiatric Society since 2012 and an examination reviewer with the National Board of Podiatric Medical Examiners since 2008.
In addition to the variety of conditions he treats on a daily basis, his office has a partnership with the Baystate Wound Care Center — an important aspect of podiatry since effective wound care is often a key factor in limb preservation.
Sarage’s wife, Dawn, is a nursing administrator at the Hospital of Central Connecticut, and the pair are avid fans of the outdoors, enjoying running (including half-marathons), cycling, and golfing, among other activities.