UPMC Successfully Extends Risk Adjustment to Medicaid via Provider Risk Capture

Dr. Towers is the Director of Risk Adjustment for UPMC Enterprises, a practicing physician, and an associate professor of medicine. She is directly involved in the development of healthcare related technology, with emphasis on use of Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Risk Adjustment coding and use of Clinical Analytics to optimize clinical performance. Prior to this role, she has served as the Medical Director for Health Information Management at UPMC with responsibility for CDI and inpatient coding denials.

Dr. Towers has been on the faculty in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh for over 25 years, and continues to see patients at the Benedum Geriatric Center in UPMC. She is the former Medical Staff President at UPMC Presbyterian, and her prior positions have been as Vice Chair for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety for the Department of Medicine, Medical Director of the Benedum Geriatric Center and Medical Director of Primary Care at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. Dr. Towers has presented the experience at UPMC with use of NLP for coding at multiple regional and national conferences.

Davlyn Nauman is Director of Analytics for UPMC for You and UPMC for Kids at UPMC Health Plan. In that capacity, she is responsible for overseeing the analytics that drive business decisions for the Medicaid and CHIP products. This includes clinical, quality, operational, and risk adjustment focuses.  Ms. Nauman has more than 12 years of experience with UPMC Health Plan, all with the UPMC for You team; growing from an analyst on the team to Director of the analytics department. Ms. Nauman’s education includes a B.S. in Mathematics from Slippery Rock University and M.A. in Statistics from the University of Pittsburgh.