Meet Our Highly Experienced Team
Laura J. Aguiar, B.S. CTFC
Principal and Managing Partner
Ms. Aguiar has worked in a transplant since 1993. She has previously held the positions of Transplant Financial Coordinator, Financial Administrator, Operations Manager, and Compliance Coordinator for Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston), and Mayo Clinic Arizona. She is a founder of, and served two terms as President, of the Transplant Financial Coordinators Association, and continues to serve on its Board of Directors as a Trustee. She has also served as Regional Representative to the UNOS/OPTN Transplant Administrators, Communications, and Finance Committees as well as having been asked to join the Advisory Council for the National Living Donor Assistance Center in 2008.
Ms. Aguiar’s consulting career began when Bill Vaughan asked her to join Health Systems Concepts in 2008. In 2014 Ms. Aguiar and Ms. Wolfe formed Transplant Solutions, LLC. During her consulting career, she has helped to multiple new transplant hospitals as well as worked with numerous programs to ensure their compliance with the CMS Conditions of Participation and improve their financial and operational process’ to ensure long-term viability. Ms. Aguiar has a Bachelor of Science in Healthcare Administration from Northeastern University in Boston and is a Certified Transplant Financial Coordinator.
Caroline M. Wolfe, RN BSN
Principal
Like many people in the transplant world, Ms. Wolfe’s entry into transplantation was accidental, though in her case, a real accident-a skiing accident, to be precise. Unable to provide bedside care for patients while in a full-leg cast, she ended up taking care of dialysis patients at the Medical College of Ohio, now known as the University of Toledo Medical Center, which could be done while seated on a stool. This, in turn, led her to the very early days of the kidney transplant program at MCO-she was a Transplant Coordinator literally before there was such a position at MCO! She would ultimately end up as the Senior Transplant Coordinator for the program until her retirement in 1997. While at the MCO transplant program, she obtained certification as both a Transplant Coordinator (CCTC) and Nephrology Nurse (CNN).
She started working with Bill Vaughan and the late Roy Crystal at Health Systems Concepts on a part-time basis in 1987 and has continued on a part-time to full-time basis ever since. Few in the transplant community can claim 25 years of transplant center experience and 30 years of consulting experience.
William P. Vaughan
Principal
Bill Vaughan is a nationally recognized expert within the transplant community in the areas of transplant finance, operations, compliance, and especially the Medicare Cost Report for both transplant hospitals and tissue typing labs.
Bill started ‘playing’ with Medicare, as he likes to say, when he was employed by the Aetna Life Insurance Company, a Medicare Fiscal Intermediary in Hartford, Connecticut, starting in 1976. During his 11 years with them, he served as an administrator of a Medicare Part A field office and the Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease Reimbursement Program with a focus on the tissue-typing laboratories and independent organ procurement agencies.
Also, Bill was Vice President of Reimbursement at LifeLink Foundation, Inc., Tampa, from 1985 to 1990. After that, Bill led Health Systems Concepts as Founder and Principal from 1986 - 2012 and Chief Operating Officer of Guidry and East before joining Transplant Solutions, LLC, in 2015.
Our Team Includes
Yolanda T. Becker
M.D., FACS, FAST
Abdominal Transplant Surgery, Regulatory Compliance, Clinical Operations
Dicken S.C. Ko
BSc., MD, FRCSC, FACS
Abdominal Transplant Surgery and Transplant Urology
Helen 'Gigi' Spicer
BSN, RN
Senior Consultant
Transplant Clinical Operations and Quality
Francisco A. Arabia,
MD MBA
Heart Transplant Surgery,
Total Artificial Heart, and Mechanical Assist Device
Stephanie A. Moore
MD, FACC, FACP
Transplant Cardiology, Advanced Heart Failure, Transplant Quality
Kimberly Ann Parks
D.O., F.A.C.C.
Transplant Cardiology & Advanced Heart Failure
Michael P. Curry
MD
Transplant Hepatology
Advanced Liver Disease
Martha Pavlakis
MD
Transplant Nephrology
Christine Palms
RN MS
Senior Consultant
Transplant Operations, CMS Survey Readiness
OTTR Patient Management System
Kristy Edwards
RN CCTC
Senior Consultant
Transplant Quality, CMS Survey Readiness,
Organ Allocation and Organ Placement
Diane L. Kasper
RN, CCTC
Senior Consultant
Transplant Clinical Operations, Transplant Nursing, and New Program Development
Personalized Assistance
During the course of their combined professional and consulting careers, the staff at Transplant Solutions, LLC have worked with more than 150 transplant hospitals, tissue typing labs, and OPOs in the country, assisting with new program development, financial and clinical operations reviews, Medicare Cost Report preparation, new staff orientation, physician/surgeon executive coaching, clinical mentoring, and Systems Improvement Agreement (SIA) fulfillment. This gives them a perspective nearly unmatched in the transplant community today.
Transplant Solutions, LLC was started to better meet the needs of those clients who want more personal attention and support than other consulting firms are able to provide. And, since our overhead is low, we can pass those savings on to our clients.
Transplant Solutions, LLC, has a multi-disciplinary team of experienced transplant professionals ready to meet your needs.
How can we help you?