As Fi-Med’s certified compliance consultant and operations leader, Christine has brought to independent medical practice’s a re-engineered “billing” office, expanding it into the efficient and compliant business management of accounts receivable. Christine worked alongside Adrian Velasquez to form and build Fi-Med Management, Inc. in 1993 with the common vision: aiding independent physicians in increasing profits, reducing compliance risk and creating, and maintaining, a healthy practice.

Christine brings to Fi-Med a unique and powerful blend of healthcare and business experience, along with a double major in accounting and business management at Lakeland College where she graduated magna cum laude. She is a certified compliance consultant and member of the Medical Group Management Association, American College of Healthcare Executives, Healthcare Compliance Resources, and Comprehensive Medical Practice Analysts.

Her contributions to the community include serving on the board of NewCastle Place, Inc., EastCastle Place, Inc. and Milwaukee Protestant Home, Inc. She also volunteers her time as an election official in Elm Grove, WI.

Christine’s Awards & Nominations

Selected to receive “Wisconsin’s 2007 Small Business Person of the Year Award”
Received Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition in recognition of outstanding and invaluable service to the community.
Nominated for Women of Distinction Award
Nominated for Women of Influence Award

Similarly, while operating billing offices for the Management Division, HMS is constantly learning through actual experience and continuously updating the Medical Management System for the benefit of Turnkey users. 

The Turnkey Division combines powerful industry-standard hardware and the HMS Medical Management System software for practices that desire their own independent billing operation. The software provided is specific to each hospital-based specialty, with the focus of automating as many functions as possible, providing the easiest functions for day-to-day operations, and including the most comprehensive reporting available to guide important practice decisions.

The robust HMS software retains its edge because HMS has a unique process for prioritizing its enhancements.   The HMS Users Group, wholly-independent from HMS, meets twice each year to recommend ideas for enhancements to the system.  The group is led by its board of officers and funded by annual membership dues from the client members.  HMS attends all of the meetings, and therefore, knows just what its clients need all the time. 

The Practice Management Division provides billing outsource solutions for groups who do not wish to face the challenge of an internal billing operation.  HMS employs experts to monitor the changes pertaining to each specialty, and maintains memberships in the key organizations that propel and monitor changes in the medical billing and practice management industry, which gives their clients confidence about their investment in the future.

Learn more about Healthcare Management Systems, A Fi-Med Company.

The offer followed others from companies like IBM and ITT in New York, but Usry, newly married at the time, didn’t want to relocate. The opportunity to work with General Medical Corporation’s 11 divisions in Maryland and Virginia came at the right time, on the heels of a fresh degree – a B.S. in business management with an emphasis in computer science– and the preparatory experience of his work during school as a computer operator and programmer assistant for the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond.

Over the course of his 40-year career, lucrative job offers and opportunities followed, and Usry became sought after in the industry by companies like Medical Data Services, who were implementing similar health care processing systems and needed expertise that at the time was in short supply. Usry built a reputation for speed and precision, developing highly saleable systems in a fraction of the time typically required – once developing a complex prototype from scratch in less than a week. The first system sold within hours of final post-production testing, and Usry went on to close more than $1 million in system sales to hospitals around the country. Later, Usry would be instrumental in the development of one of the first medical billing solutions for physicians using the mini-computer.

Today Usry heads up Healthcare Management Systems (HMS), a software division of medical revenue cycle management firm Fi-Med Management, Inc. HMS software, built to be scalable to medical billing operations of any size, was first put into practice by the University of Virginia Hospital System’s new health services foundation in 1980. Under the direction of the university and Price Waterhouse, Usry and his team customized an HMS software installation to bring the foundation’s members – 270 independent physicians at that time – all under one billing umbrella.

Usry continued to develop and evolve HMS through changing technologies and healthcare regulatory landscapes in the 30 years following, its success attracting the attention of ArborMed Corporation, a medical billing firm led by well-know medical billing veteran Charles Morf. ArborMed purchased Health Management Systems in 2005, and both entities were later acquired by Fi-Med Management, Inc. in 2009.

At Fi-Med, Usry continues to expand HMS nationally, and will be instrumental in developing the company’s growing presence in the radiology market. As part of the executive management team, he’ll help to shape Fi-Med’s future as a leader in the fast-changing healthcare billing and revenue management industry.

Richard Usry is a long-time member of the Healthcare Billing and Management Association (HBMA), involved in numerous committees, including vendor and education. He and his wife, Betty, live in Richmond, Virginia, and have three daughters with successful careers of their own.

The acquisition, completed on Dec. 28, comes at the confluence of two goals: for Mediplete, the need to bring new, more efficient technologies on board for their clients in an IT-savvy environment, and for Fi-Med, the desire to expand its presence into the western U.S.

“It was a natural for the two companies to merge,” says Fi-Med President Adrian Velasquez. “Fi-Med had proven technology with proven results. Mediplete was able to bring more value to their clients without having to increase the cost to the client.”

Fi-Med has welcomed aboard all existing Mediplete employees, including the company’s owners and management team. Mediplete clients, many of them surgical centers and anesthesia groups, will continue to receive the same top-notch services they received before the acquisition, with the addition of Fi-Med’s repertoire of financial medical management services and cutting-edge technology. Fi-Med’s current clients will benefit from the additional knowledge and expertise of Mediplete’s contracting and coding specialists.