Board of Directors
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Clarissa Barnes, MD, FACP, MBA, ACPA-C
Board Chair
Dr. Clarissa Barnes is a board-certified internist who trained at Johns Hopkins for medical school and residency. She practiced as a traditional internist and a primary-care physician before starting her current work as a hospitalist at Avera McKennan in Sioux Falls, SD. She has served as Lead Physician Advisor at Avera McKennan as well as a system-level Physician Advisor for Avera Health. Currently she serves as the Chief Medical Officer for South Dakota Medicaid.
Dr. Barnes believes in leading from the front and improving the practice of medicine for patients and clinicians alike. She has held a variety of administrative roles in the areas of physician wellness and quality in addition to her physician advisor work. She has extensive experience in both written and verbal communications, which includes national-level publications and media appearances. She loves bringing people together to use their varied experiences to solve common problems.
She lives in the South Dakota countryside with her husband and three children.
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Denise Goodman, MD, MS, FCCM
Board Director
Dr. Denise Goodman attended medical school at State University of New York at Buffalo, completed a pediatrics residency at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical School, and then a pediatric critical care medicine fellowship at Pittsburgh Children’s Hospital. Her first faculty position was at the University of Minnesota before moving to Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago (formerly Children’s Memorial Hospital).She is a Professor of Pediatrics, has been a practicing pediatric intensivist for over 25 years, and was medical director of a large invasive home ventilation program. She has enjoyed the classic academic life of clinical care, teaching, and research and has also served on the pediatric critical care medicine Subboard of the American Board of Pediatrics and is an Associate Editor at the Journal of Pediatrics. As Medical Director of Case Management and Care Coordination at Lurie Children’s she is responsible for denials management, utilization management, and physician education on a number of topics. In addition, she has led or participated in numerous special projects at the intersection of clinical care and the revenue cycle, including readmission reduction, prior authorization, out-of-network processes, and length of stay management. Awards include selection to “Best Doctors in America” and election as a Fellow of the American College of Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Goodman is the immediate past chair of the American College of Physician Advisors Pediatric Committee.
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Juliet B. Ugarte Hopkins, MD, ACPA-C
Board Director
Dr. Juliet B. Ugarte Hopkins is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Medicine and served as co-chief resident while in her Pediatrics residency at Advocate Lutheran General Children's Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. She practiced as a pediatric hospitalist for a decade and served as medical director of pediatric hospital medicine and vice-chair of pediatrics in northern Illinois before working for almost a decade as the first physician advisor for case management, utilization, and clinical documentation at a three-hospital health system in southeastern Wisconsin.
Dr. Ugarte Hopkins is Medical Director of Phoenix Medical Management, Inc. and Founder/CEO of Velvet Hammer Physician Advising LLC. She makes regular appearances on the Talk Ten Tuesdays and Monitor Mondays webcasts and is a regular author of articles found at RACMonitor.com, as well as ICD10Monitor.com. She was the first physician board member for the Wisconsin chapter of the American Case Management Association (ACMA), is a member of the RACMonitor editorial board, and she was recognized as a "Hirsch's Hero" by Dr. Ronald Hirsch in 2016. Dr. Ugarte Hopkins has spoken at multiple national and regional conferences on topics related to case/utilization management and clinical documentation integrity efforts involving physician advisors, was co-chair of the ACPA's National Physician Advisor Conference from 2017 - 2020, and led the ACPA as president from 2020 - 2023.
Living in Northern Illinois, she and her husband enjoy hiking, collecting eclectic art and knick-knacks, and strive valiantly to encourage their four children to be thoughtful and self-assured individuals with a corny sense of humor.
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Emeric Palmer, MBBS, MBA, FACP
Board Director
Dr. Palmer is a Medical Director with Anthem Inc. He has worked as a Physician Executive in the Revenue Cycle for the last decade. He served as Senior Medical Director Resource Utilization at Mary Washington Healthcare, Physician Advisor and Assistant Chief Medical Officer at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital in Northern Virginia, and Physician Advisor at Meritus Medical Center in Maryland. With the Revenue Cycle Solutions division of the Advisory Board Company Inc, he delivered engagement and training of physicians around physician documentation improvement in hospitals and healthcare systems across the country. He serves on the CDI committee with the American College of Physician Advisors (ACPA).
Dr. Palmer’s clinical activity included working as a traditional Internist for the first several years of his career in Chicago and Northwestern Indiana, before becoming a dedicated hospitalist, and wound care and hyperbaric medicine physician. He has also worked extensively in LTACHs and SNFs.
Dr. Palmer holds board certifications in Internal Medicine with Focused Practice in Hospital Medicine, Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine, and Healthcare Quality and Management with physician advisor subspecialty. He completed his Residency in Internal Medicine at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago, IL, and graduated from the College of Medicine, University of Benin, in Benin, Nigeria. He also holds an MBA from the University of Massachusetts. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, and they have 2 adult children. He loves traveling with his family, is a casual fan of soccer and plays in his local league.
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Ritu Prasad, MD
Board Director
Ritu Prasad, MD, is Vice President - Case Management, Utilization, and Physician Advisor Services, MedStar Health. In this role, Dr. Prasad oversees strategic direction, program development and implementation for acute case management at MedStar Health. A vital component of her role includes developing and implementing both short- and long-term strategies for acute case management and the Physician Advisory Program.
Dr. Prasad also partners with Chief Medical Officers, hospital and Nursing leadership, Finance, Compliance, and Population Health to design and develop recommendations for enhancing throughput and reductions in patient length of stay.
Dr. Prasad joined MedStar Health in 2016, first serving as physician advisor and medical director, Observation Services, for six years. In 2022, she transitioned to the role of senior physician advisor at MedStar Good Samaritan Hospital and MedStar Union Memorial Hospital, where she also serves as vice president, Medical Staff. She currently serves as chair of the American College of Physician Advisors Government Affairs Committee.
Dr. Prasad is board certified in Emergency Medicine and received her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University and her medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine.
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Elizabeth Quinn, MD
Board Director
Dr. Elizabeth Quinn currently serves as the System Senior Vice President for CommonSpirit Health’s Internal Physician Advisor Service (IPAS).
Upon graduation from the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, Dr. Quinn practiced as an Internist and Hospitalist in the Bay Area for over 10 years, co-founding the first Hospitalist program for a 130 acute bed stroke center.
She served as President for the California Association of Interns and Residents, and was a delegate to the American Medical Association. Furthermore, she served as a Director for the Oakland Children’s Hospital’s Multicultural Curriculum Program, creating and implementing multicultural education programs for the Alameda County Medical Center and Public Health Department.
Ultimately, Dr. Quinn decided to transition from clinical practice to physician advisory. After several years of honing her skills as a physician advisor, she joined the newly formed Internal Physician Advisor Service (IPAS) at Catholic Health Initiatives. Since then, she has helped to develop and establish the system-wide IPAS department of what is now CommonSpirit Health, one of the largest not for profit health systems in the United States.
In 2022, Dr. Quinn served as Co-Chair for NPAC 2022, Exploring the Spectrum: Leadership through Collaboration and Diversification. Subsequently, she served as Chair for NPAC 2023, Mavericks of Change: The Transformative Value of Physician Advisors. And, for 2024, Dr. Quinn returned to Chair NPAC 2024, Physician Advisors on Duty: Safeguarding Patients Amidst Shifting Currents of Healthcare.
Dr. Quinn is a champion for the expanding roles of physician advisors within healthcare. She recognizes the profound impact physician advisors can have on Compliance, Revenue Cycle, Quality Assurance, Population Health, and many other areas of the healthcare landscape. More importantly, Dr. Quinn is passionate about how the physician advisor can and should remain a strong advocate for all patients.
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