The Affirmant Staff is here to support our local chapters and their efforts in Clinical Integration. We do this by bringing together subject matter experts from across our network to share the best practices; negotiating with health plan partners to bend the cost curve and share in the rewards; and using data from tools such as Epic, to help us make higher value decisions at the point of care.
Bill Mayer, MD, MPH, president and CEO
Dr. Mayer has over 25 years of leadership experience in health care and health-related organizations. His professional roles have included program director at the National Cancer Institute, co-leader of health care consulting at The Wyatt Company—now Willis Towers Watson-in Washington, D.C., corporate medical director, division president and executive vice president at Kellogg Company, medical director at United Health Care; and chief quality officer, chief medical informatics officer and senior vice president for Managed Care and Community Health at Bronson Healthcare.
Dr. Mayer has served on the faculty of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program and the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker MD School of Medicine, as a lecturer in epidemiology at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Hygiene and Public Health, as a committee member at the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, and as a reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine. He has published a number of peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on such subjects as black/white differences in cancers of the breast and bladder, cancer prevention in primary care, and assessing and improving health care quality.
Lawrence Green, director of payer strategy
Larry Green, A.M., MBA, joined Affirmant in July 2017 from Judah Consulting which provided managed care contracting and strategy expertise to large urban-based practices. Over the last twenty years, Larry has served in various senior executive roles including Vice President of Operations at Presence Health Partners, Vice President of Managed Care at Ascension Health, Senior Director of Managed Care Contracting and Health Plan Relations at Advocate Physician Partners, and Director of Operations at HCA.
Larry graduated with honors from the University of Chicago with a Master of Arts degree in Public Policy. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Northern Illinois University, and is currently completing a PhD at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. An avid golfer, Larry is beginning his exploration of Michigan’s challenging courses.
Dr. Karin Proos, director of clinical transformation
Karin Proos, Pharm.D., is Director of Clinical Transformation. She has been a pharmacist for almost 20 years and has spent much of her career at Spectrum Health, working with over 3000 providers in more than 200 primary and specialty offices. Karin also spent four years at Michigan Medical P.C., a multi-specialty, physician-owned medical group, where she supported the implementation of the patient centered medical home model and the Epic electronic health record. While at Spectrum Health, Dr. Proos established a medication safety team and program for the health system, created and led an ambulatory pharmacy team for primary care, served as a clinical informatics resource for the Epic electronic health record, and drove value through quality and payer initiatives. Initially, Karin joined Affirmant Health Partners in November 2017 as the Director of Pharmacy and Safety and within six months transitioned into the role of Director of Clinical Transformation. Outside of work, Karin enjoys spending time with her husband, walking the dog, oil painting, cooking and reading.
Katy Velten, director of communications
As director of communications since June 2016, Katy has been instrumental in the successful launch of the Affirmant brand and messaging around our vision to achieve a healthy Michigan at an affordable cost. Katy is responsible for the engagement of education and communication with our six member systems, seven local Chapters, and over 6,000 participating physicians. Outside of Katy’s professional responsibilities, she serves on the board of directors for the Michigan Society for Healthcare Planning and Marketing, mentors with Southwest Michigan First and is currently pursuing her Master’s in Communications from Western Michigan University. In her free time, you can find her with her husband and two daughters enjoying a musical, reading, traveling or golfing.
Paul Peabody, information technology and business intelligence executive
In October 2017, Paul joined Affirmant following his retirement as chief information officer and senior vice president at Bronson Healthcare. Before his four-year tenure with Bronson, he served as the CIO for Beaumont Health, Michigan’s largest health care system, for 30 years. Paul is a highly regarded health care CIO and has installed and worked extensively with Epic electronic health records platform as an early adopter in Michigan and was instrumental in helping Epic develop the Community Connect program. Paul is active in numerous health industry councils and is a founding member and past president of the Detroit Chapter of the Society for information management. He also is a founding member and former VP and board member of the San Diego Chapter of SIM.
