Mel Eisele, MBA, is the newly appointed Loma Linda University Health vice president of the revenue cycle, a financial officer charged with overseeing and changing various processes that are vital to the organization’s operations.
The new vice president comes from a financial position at Adventist Healthcare, a not-for-profit organization in Rockville, Maryland, which supervises three hospitals (Shady Grove Adventist and Washington Adventist in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC; and Hackettstown Regional Medical Center in New Jersey) and two separate institutes (for rehabilitation and behavioral medicine) near the Shady Grove facility.
The son of a minister, Eisele spent his childhood growing up in Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee. He is a 1993 graduate of Southern Adventist University near Chattanooga, Tennessee (bachelor’s degree in business administration) and holds an MBA from Webber International University in Babson Park, Florida. He spent seven years at Walker Memorial Medical Center (now Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Center) in Sebring, Florida.
“I’m very excited to join the financial team at Loma Linda University Health,” Eisele says. “This is a tremendous opportunity to work with good people and have a real impact on this community and worldwide."
He outlined several challenges he will work on in coming months. “One big issue is stabilizing the billing operations at the Children’s Hospital, dealing with changes brought on by the separate licensure that went into effect in November 2014.
“Another issue is implementation of ICD10, a new coding system imposed by the federal government, with an Oct. 1 launch,” he continues. “ICD stands for International Classification of Diseases. This system will affect almost everyone in Loma Linda University Health, raising the number of classifications from about 7,000 to more than 80,000. We must have special training and roll-outs to bring our people up to speed, as well as updating IT systems.”
Eisele’s office is located in the LLUAHSC 101 Redlands Boulevard facility. His wife, Juli, and 13-year-old daughter, Megan, will move to California from Maryland at the end of the current school year.