Corporate Officers

Charles Locke, MD                                                     Email Dr. Locke
President

 Dr. Charles Locke has been a Physician Advisor, Utilization/Clinical Resource Management for Johns Hopkins Hospital since 2011 and the Senior Physician Advisor since 2013. He is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He has been active in areas CMS hospital payment and audit policy, including visit status determination and the Recovery Audit (RA) program. Dr. Locke continues to have active clinical duties, including serving a preceptor for Johns Hopkins internal medicine residents in an ambulatory clinic and as an attending physician on one of the inpatient medicine services at Johns Hopkins Hospital..

Dr. Locke received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, and is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Faculty Development Program for Clinical Educators.

E.G. "Nick" Ulmer, Jr., MD, CPC                               Email Dr. Ulmer
Vice President

 Dr. Nick Ulmer is a Family Physician whose career began in 1991 and includes 10 years of obstetrics and 17 years of hospital-based medicine. Dr. Ulmer realized the importance of correct coding and documentation early in his career and became a Certified Professional Coder in 2001; making him one of only 16 physicians nationally at that time with the dual "MD/CPC" credentials.

He used his knowledge of coding and hospital medicine to develop an internal physician advisor program at Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System to address issues relating to case management, correct status determination, and appeals management.

He is VP of Clinical Services and Medical Director of Case Management at SRHS and is active in physician education at SRHS in the areas of outpatient practice management as well as various inpatient clinically correct coding initiatives.

Larry Hegland, MD, MMM                                        Email Dr. Hegland
Vice President

Dr. Larry Hegland is the System Medical Director for Recovery Audit and Appeal Services for Ministry Health Care. He also serves as Chief Medical Officer for Ministry Saint Clare’s Hospital, Ministry Good Samaritan Medical Center and The Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Weston, Wisconsin.

Dr. Hegland received his training as an anesthesiologist at Northwestern University and possesses a degree in Medical Management from Carnegie Mellon University.

Daniel Zirkman, MD                                                  Email Dr. Zirkman
Secretary

Daniel M. Zirkman, MD  is a graduate of Duke University in 1979 and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Texas where he received his medical degree in 1986.  

He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship training in Nephrology at Montefiore University Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Dr. Zirkman practiced Nephrology for the past 23 years, during which time he served as the Medical Director of the inpatient dialysis unit at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, New Jersey, and on the Trans-Atlantic Renal Council in an advisory role.  He also served as the President of the Monmouth County Medical Society (2010-2012) and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the state Medical Society of New Jersey for the past 4 years.  

In 2012, Dr. Zirkman transitioned into the world of physician advising when he joined Executive Health Resources working as a physician advisor in the Government Appeals department handling all levels of  Medicare and Medicaid denials including administrative law judge (ALJ) hearings. He joined Riverview Medical Center, part of the Hackensack-Meridian System, in Red Bank, New Jersey in 2014 assuming the position of full time physician advisor. Ultimately the call or warmer weather and less congested roadways led him to his current position as chief physician advisor at CarolinaEast Medical Center in New Bern, North Carolina.  Areas of interest include clinical documentation improvement, ICD-10 implementation and concurrent status review.

Dr. Zirkman is married with three children and still spends much of his free time recalling his athletic endeavors from younger days.

Larry Field, DO, MBA                                           Email Dr. Field
Treasurer

Dr. Larry Field has extensive experience as treasurer during two State of Florida House of Representatives political campaigns and other Corporations. Since 2010, Dr. Field has been a Health System Physician Advisor at Munroe Regional Medical Center; a 421 bed acute care hospital in Ocala, Florida. 

Since 2010, he has been a consultant to physicians and hospitals on regulatory and other matters as CEO of Medical Analytics Group Inc. From 2008 through 2010 Dr. Field was a General Internal Medicine Hospitalist. Between 1999 and 2008 he served as the CEO for Hyperbarics of Ocala Inc. and Medical Director of Hyperbaric Medicine, as well as a Wound Specialist at Ocala Regional Medical Center. 

He was also the CEO of IMed Consortium from 1992 to 1999. Prior to forming IMed Consortium, Dr. Field was an Internal Medicine Resident at Presbyterian University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA, and was a Transitional Intern at Humana Hospital of the Palm Beaches in Florida. 

Dr. Field received his B.S. degree in Business Management from Boston University, his DO degree from Nova Southeastern College of Osteopathic Medicine and his MBA from the University of South Florida. Dr. Field has always been interested in the regulatory aspects of health care. He has formalized the regulatory interest with additional training and is certified in Healthcare Quality Management (CHCQM), Professional Coder (CPC), and Healthcare Compliance (CHC). Dr. Field is also a licensed Risk Manager in Florida. 
  

Dr. Field been trained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce, in the Malcolm Baldrige Quality healthcare criteria and is also AHIMA ICD 10CM/PCS trained.

Ms. Elizabeth Lamkin is a national speaker and author on operations, quality, utilization, and billing compliance. Her most recent publication with HCPro is The Revenue Integrity Training Toolkit.

Ms. Lamkin has over 20 years of experience as a hospital CEO and has served in teaching hospitals, non-profit and investor owned sectors of healthcare where she developed forward thinking systems to improve quality and utilization. 

And she holds a Master’s in Healthcare Administration from the University of South Carolina, Columbia and BA Cum Laude, Core in Business Administration, from the University of South Carolina.