Misty Taylor
Chief Executive Officer
Misty Taylor is utilizing her unique healthcare insight to establish the vision, mission, and strategy for NorthCoast. Her goal is to provide elite services and enhance customer relationships.
Her focus for NorthCoast’s service offerings is to reduce the administrative back-office burden of both insurers and providers by taking the guess work out of the process and supporting efficient and accurate credentialing and submissions. By relieving these administrative burdens, Ms. Taylor aims for both payors and providers to focus on what matters most – patients.
Ms. Taylor has experience at a variety of organizations including home healthcare, hospice, and emergency departments. Her leadership and executive positions were held at Avita Home Health and Hospice, BrightStar Care, Concerto Health, CareSource, and Molina Healthcare.
Message from CEO
“NorthCoast was founded by the late Lee Passel in 1995. When Lee passed in 2021 and entrusted his company to his wife, Merle, and son, Grant, it was both my honor and privilege to carry on his legacy of ensuring that NorthCoast provides the highest quality of professionalism, customer satisfaction, and customer experience.
Having personal experience leading Home Health, Hospice, and Payer organizations, I recognize the unique needs of our various partnerships, ensuring that NorthCoast supports efforts to maximize our partners’ ROI. In addition, as a Registered Nurse, our goal is to support back-end administrative functions as efficiently as possible so our providers can assure appropriate and effective care delivery for their patients.
My NorthCoast leadership team has over 137 combined years of relevant experience in the industry, making us some of the best qualified in the field. Since 2021, NorthCoast has continued to drive efficiencies while revolutionizing our business through enhanced technology platforms that ultimately increase payment turnaround times, claims processing, authorization enhancements, and improved speed of benefit verification. We continue to strive to make ongoing enhancements that will ultimately benefit our partnerships.
Thank you for trusting NorthCoast to be your preferred network management partner.”
Chief Financial Officer & Chief Technology Officer
Credentials and Certifications: M.B.A., CPA (Inactive), QuickBooks Pro Advisor
Degree and Education: B.S. Accounting – University of Akron; M.B.A. Systems Management – Baldwin Wallace University
Industry Experience: Mr. Lang’s career journey has been through both SMBs and several Fortune 500 organizations in the banking, finance, and health insurance sectors. His signature leadership style and strategic approach positions Finance as a bridge between IT and Operations functions and converts critical company assets into unique differentiators. He has held positions at Ernst & Young and Anthem.
Years of Experience in the Healthcare Industry: 9
“The culture at NorthCoast allows everyone to share ideas and work in a true team environment that allows for accountability, creativity and overall, in an environment that allows each person to do their very best. As the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Technology Officer I strive to deliver financial and technological processes that ensure a great end user experience which focuses on accuracy, reliability and ease of use.”
Chief Operating Officer
Degree and Education: B.S. Healthcare Administration – Baldwin Wallace University
Industry Experience: Ms. Konopka has experience in all elements of operations including people, process, and technology. She has a reputation for building customer relationships and leading in a rapidly changing healthcare environment. She has held positions at Option Care, TPA Stream, and MedPilot Inc.
Years of Experience in the Healthcare Industry: 30
“I enjoy helping others and in my role I am able to contract with providers who can service patients needing home health, hospice and infusion therapy. Accountability, follow-up and follow-through in everything we do every day.”
Chief Compliance Officer
Credentials and Certifications: B.S. Healthcare Administration – Brookline College – Phoenix; M.B.A. Business Administration – Franklin University;Project Management Certification – LPC, EMC, SSGB
Degree and Education: Associates, Medical Billing; Bachelors, Healthcare Administration; Masters, Business Administration
Industry Experience: Natoshya Burdette is responsible for the development of measurable quality metrics, cascading scorecards, cross departmental collaboration, and driving improvement outcomes and initiatives within each department. Her contribution is vital to ensuring quality and efficiency standards are met for every provider and payor.
Years of Experience in the Healthcare Industry: 17 Years
“I enjoy working for NorthCoast because it provides a stimulating challenge. I take pride in contributing to an established company's long-overdue technological transition. While I don't have much interaction with our customers, I love the opportunity to speak to them. I try to ensure that the technological progress we are making is adding value for them.”
Director of Information Security & Governance
Credentials and Certifications: Mr. Gatete has successfully led NorthCoast through two consecutive 2-year HITRUST certifications.
Degree and Education: B.S. in Operations Management, Penn State University
B.S. in Healthcare Information System Management, Franklin University
Industry Experience: Mr. Gatete has held positions as a Business and Process Analyst and a Senior Medical Economics Analyst. He is working on HITRUST certification. His career includes positions at Molina Healthcare and ConcertoCare. At NorthCoast he is responsible for Compliance and IT oversight. As NorthCoast navigates its HITRUST certification process, He manages, maintains, and implements technology solutions for compliance and regulatory requirements across the company.
Years of Experience in the Healthcare Industry: 16 Years
Professional Motto: “When you know better, do better.” - which means that knowledge comes with responsibility. As we gain new insights, understanding, or awareness, we should apply that knowledge to improve our actions and decisions.
“As a Director of Information Security and Governance my role involves ensuring that the organization’s security and governance policies not only protect data and comply with regulations but also serve the needs of internal and external customers. This means creating and implementing security measures that are user-friendly and responsive to the needs of various stakeholders, including employees, partners, and clients.”
Director of Operations & Customer Care Relations
Credentials and Certifications: CHAA Certified through National Association of Healthcare Access Management
Degree and Education: B.A. Human Development, with Honors - California State University, Long Beach.
Industry Experience: Ms. Becka brings over 15 years of healthcare experience to NorthCoast. She has held positions at OptionCare and Southwest General Health Center. With her passion and dedication to her work, Ms. Becka excels at meeting the demands of the ever-changing healthcare industry. At NorthCoast she is responsible for Credentialing, Operations, and Provider Resolution oversight. Ms Becka develops, manages, and implements operational processes and customer care focused solutions. She ensures the highest level of customer quality across the company.
Years of Experience in the Healthcare Industry: 15
“I have never worked with a more passionate, honest, and innovative team than here at NorthCoast, where everyone is committed to delivering quality and excellence to our customers. I am committed to exceeding our customer’s expectations by providing the tools, resources, and support they need to be successful. It is my passion to deliver prompt, dependable, and quality service that our customers can trust and rely on.”
Revenue Cycle Supervisor
Industry Experience: Karen has over 17 years experience in home health care, hospice, and therapy billing. Her experience was in outpatient as well as in the home. She has worked for private companies along with hospitals. One of her positions was held at Southwest General Hospital and Therapy in Motion. Karen is responsible for the day-to-day activities of the Accounts Payable/Receivable Billing Team. She keeps the team motivated, and trains as needed. Her contribution is vital to the quality of customer service for every provider as well as keeping everyone on her team up to date on any changes with payers.
Years of Experience in the Healthcare Industry: 25
“Working at NorthCoast is more like family than co-workers. Ensuring customer satisfaction by answering any inquiries as timely as possible. Always do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Care Coordination Team Lead
Credentials and Certifications: LPN, Nancy J Knight School of Nursing
Degree and Education: Home Hospice, Psychiatric Nursing and Care Coordination
Industry Experience: Heather offers a robust background with 15 years in nursing, complemented by over 3 years of experience as an authorization specialist and 2 years as a compliance specialist. Her diverse expertise ensures a comprehensive understanding of both clinical and administrative processes, allowing her to deliver exceptional service and support.
Years of Experience in the Healthcare Industry: 15
“In my current role, my main focus is ensuring accountability, accessibility and adaptability in all that we do. To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.”
