Built on Integrity: CEO’s Perspective

I’ve heard a lot recently about new efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse from our nation’s Medicaid system. You’re a critical member of our family of supporters. Knowing that Unity House gets more than three quarters of its funding through Medicaid, you might have questions.

This is an issue that I’ve been focused on almost my entire career.

In 1998, I became Unity House’s first director of quality assurance. My job was to make sure that all of our services complied with a foot-high stack of state regulations, and that every payment we received was for legitimate work completed. Most importantly, I set about looking for ways to continually improve the quality of our work supporting people with disabilities.

Today, the regulations we have to follow have grown so much they don’t fit in a stack. They’re all digital. But we’ve risen to the challenge.

Our Chief Compliance Officer, Amber Amidon, leads seven full-time quality improvement staff members. They audit our work on a daily basis. They inspect each of our sites, ensuring that our programs, facilities and procedures are as good as our mission demands. They spot-check every service and billing process to ensure that all money is spent properly and efficiently. And when they occasionally uncover errors, they take appropriate action and inform state regulators.  

Because of the work of our excellent quality improvement staff, in conjunction with our program staff and finance staff, Unity House has developed a solid reputation. Partners and state regulators know that Unity House is a well-run, person-centered organization that does not tolerate waste, fraud and abuse.

It’s a reputation I’m proud of and you can be, too. Your support gives Unity House what it needs to keep delivering on our mission. Because of you, we’ll never stop striving to better meet the needs of people with disabilities.

Thank you.