CVAUSA Leadership

About Tim Attebery

Dr. Tim Attebery is the CEO of Cardiovascular Associates of America (CVAUSA). He and Webster Equity Partners founded CVAUSA in 2021 and designed this premier network with the common goal of bringing together leading cardiovascular group practices that provide the best patient care to individuals with heart and vascular disease.

At CVAUSA, Attebery has created a business model that enables cardiovascular specialists to retain autonomy and ownership augmented by sharing best practices, executive management support, and financial support for major projects and expansion. Practices within the network will continue to drive all clinical decisions, manage regional operations, maintain their physician compensation plan, and be highly involved in strategic planning and execution at a national level.

Previously, Dr. Attebery was the CEO of the American College of Cardiology and MedAxiom. Before taking the helm at the ACC, he served as the President/CEO of Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport, Tennessee, with oversight responsibilities for HVMC Main Campus, HVMC’s 10 outpatient locations, Hawkins County Memorial Hospital in Rogersville, and Hancock County Hospital in Sneedville. Prior to his HVMC role, Dr. Attebery was the System Vice-President of Cardiovascular Services for Wellmont Health System and CEO of Cardiovascular Associates.

He has 36 years of healthcare consulting and senior management experience including serving as the CEO of three large cardiovascular group practices. He served as the President of the Cardiology Advocacy Alliance for two years; CAA is a not-for-profit organization providing federal lobbying and advocacy for 7,000 cardiologists nationwide. He was instrumental in the initial founding of MedAxiom and the Society of Cardiovascular CT. He has authored/co-authored numerous published articles on hospital mergers, strategic planning, advanced cardiac imaging, emerging healthcare services, and healthcare IT.

He has a BS degree in Business Administration from Western Governors University; an MBA from the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Haslam College of Business; and a doctoral degree in healthcare leadership from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is a Fellow of, and board certified in healthcare administration by, the American College of Healthcare Executives.

Dr. Attebery is an adjunct faculty member at East Tennessee State University and a guest lecturer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Jason Kotar brings over 25 years of senior healthcare operations experience to his position as Chief Operating Officer of Cardiovascular Associates of America (CVAUSA). In his career, Jason has held senior level operating positions in many areas of healthcare, including revenue cycle, laboratory, dialysis, population health, along with PPM companies in anesthesia, and ENT.

Prior to his role at CVAUSA, Jason served as the Regional Senior Vice President at US Anesthesia Partners (USAP), responsible for the Eastern Region. Preceding US Anesthesia Partners, Jason was the CEO of a PE backed ENT practice, as well as spending 16 years with DaVita Kidney Care and DaVita Medical Group. Jason has a strong background in operations leadership and negotiations, as well as P&L accountability, operations management, and leadership development.

For his educational background, Jason graduated from the University of Central Florida with his bachelor’s and MBA degrees. As an alum and former UCF football player, Jason enjoys attending football and basketball games and is a supportive booster for the school. Jason is also a mentor for the graduate school of business at UCF.

Outside of his professional career, Jason enjoys daily workouts, time with family and friends, many outdoor activities and travel.

About Fang Xia

Fang Xia, CPA, MAcc, is the CFO of Cardiovascular Associates of America (CVAUSA). As an experienced finance executive in healthcare for over 20 years, Fang has developed and led finance teams to build, optimize, and modernize all finance and accounting functions. Her effective and collaborative leadership with physician leaders, executive teams, and board of directors to develop, manage, and build teams and systems has supported the rapid growth and expansion of multiple organizations including CVAUSA.

Fang has been with CVAUSA since inception. Prior to joining CVAUSA, Fang served as the Chief Financial Officer of US Anesthesia Partners Florida, a private equity backed physician-led healthcare company, driving its financial strategies and performance. Throughout her career, Fang has held progressive leadership and senior management positions within 25+ medical specialties, multiple hospitals, and post-acute care facilities ranging from $300+ million to $6+ billion organizations.

Fang is a CPA and holds Bachelor of Economics and Master of Accountancy degrees. Outside of work, she enjoys painting, walking, and spending time with her family.

About Tom Schwallie

Tom Schwallie brings 20+ years of highly successful M&A leadership to CVAUSA, and for the past 15 years, he has exclusively focused on the healthcare vertical.

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Tom was the Chief Growth Officer at Duly Health and Care in Chicago, Illinois. There he developed corporate infrastructure and processes for inorganic growth initiatives and created a national pipeline of potential targets. He is a self-starter and succeeds in a fast-paced environment while being a tremendous team player.

Schwallie holds his undergraduate degree from Southern Methodist University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Tom is a founding member of the non-profit organization, Making Life Better, a 70-person volunteer organization focusing on maximizing a positive financial impact on the local needs of the community. Making Life Better is in Glenview, Illinois where Tom resides.

Dr. Dan Blumenthal brings a unique combination of business leadership skills and medical expertise to his role as Chief Quality and Research Officer. Dr. Blumenthal is a practicing board-certified non-invasive cardiologist and an instructor at Harvard Medical School.

He received his MD and MBA degrees from Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School and trained in internal medicine and cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Blumenthal is a past recipient of the American Heart Association’s Laennec Young Clinician Award and an accomplished health services and cardiovascular disease outcomes researcher whose previous work has focused on innovations in payment model design, quality improvement in cardiology, and leadership development. He has published over 50 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Blumenthal previously was a member of the founding team at Devoted Health, where he held the roles of Associate Chief Medical Officer and Medical Director for the health plan.

About Steve Seftchick

Steve Seftchick is an experienced healthcare executive with over 25 years of expertise in developing and managing payor-provider partnerships, managed care contracting, value and risk-based contracting, negotiations, healthcare strategy, and operations. Steve oversees all payor relationships and managed care activities for Cardiovascular Associates of America (CVAUSA) and risk/value-based contracting for the Novocardia Division of CVAUSA.

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Steve had a long tenure with Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield holding senior executive roles including leading successful payor-provider partnerships and responsibility for network management, and provider contracting across multiple states as SVP and Market Executive. Steve also has experience in management consulting and healthcare strategy, having previous roles with Accenture. He began his career as a clinician as a Licensed Physical Therapist Assistant where he worked across multiple care settings before pursuing his MBA at Temple University.

Steve enjoys collaborating with physicians and business leaders to solve complex issues and build successful long-term partnerships. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his family and being active outdoors.

Dr. Katherine Evans oversees operations of clinical programs for the Novocardia/Novolink Division, including implementing new initiatives, training and managing clinical personnel, and developing case management programs.

Dr. Evans is a nurse practitioner with board certifications in geriatrics and hospice & palliative care, as well as experience in inpatient and outpatient cardiology.

Prior to joining the Novocardia Division of CVAUSA, she served as national president of the Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association (GAPNA); Chief Nursing Officer for UnitedHealthcare Retiree Solutions; and Director of the Doctor of Nursing Practice program at Georgia State University. A Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, she received her MS in Nursing from Emory University and her DNP from Vanderbilt University.

About Jack Sunderman

Throughout his tenured career, Sunderman has provided strategic direction to executive management on technology and implementing robust enterprise-wide solutions. He has managed multi-national teams with the ability to prioritize, delegate and bring sound solutions to the table. Sunderman provides IT strategy and solutions and guidance and partners with the physician and administrative leaders of the CVAUSA network.

Maya Fe Holzhauer is Chief Legal Counsel at Cardiovascular Associates of America. Prior to joining CVAUSA, Maya Fe worked as a senior associate in the Business Law Department of Goodwin Procter, LLP. While at Goodwin, Maya Fe represented financial sponsors in structuring, negotiating, documenting, and closing private mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions, including assisting private equity funds with the purchase, ongoing representation and sale of portfolio companies. Maya Fe’s practice at Goodwin was principally focused on transactions in the healthcare services industry.

Maya Fe earned her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, where she was a full-tuition merit scholarship recipient. She also holds a B.A. in Political Science and Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont.

Maya Fe resides in Portsmouth, NH with her husband and their young son. Outside of work, she enjoys distance running, hiking, sailing and skiing.

Maya Fe is admitted to practice in Massachusetts only.

About Christina Sullivan

Christina Sullivan joins CVAUSA as its first Chief People Officer, bringing more than 25 years of HR executive leadership experience. Based in the Miami area, she begins her role in mid-July.

Christina joins CVAUSA from Gastro Health, where she served as the organization's first Chief People Officer for six years. Partnering closely with physician leaders, CEOs, and administrators across the Gastro Health network, she built the people infrastructure from the ground up — establishing HR systems and analytics, payroll, strategic workforce planning, and aligned compensation and benefits programs. She also launched employee engagement and recognition initiatives, recruiting and retention programs, leadership development, and succession planning, making a lasting, positive impact across the organization.

At CVAUSA, Christina will work alongside MLB and BLB leaders to prioritize the people agenda and address HR pain points and opportunities across the network. Her focus will span both market-competitive compensation and the non-compensation drivers that matter most to today's workforce — culture, manager relationships, equity and fairness, connection to mission and values, and opportunities to learn and grow.

Christina brings the experience, expertise, servant leadership, tenacity, kindness, humility, and passion needed to elevate CVAUSA's HR function and its impact on the people who care for our patients.

About Ben Diestel

Ben is Chief Innovation Officer. He is responsible for leading corporate development initiatives, including M&A, de novo growth, and market expansion opportunities.

Prior to joining our team, Ben led business development activities at CareCentrix and was a Consultant at the Advisory Board Company. Ben holds received his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, where he ran varsity track and field, and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

About Irene Gilchrist

Irene C. Gilchrist is a financial leader with extensive experience in not-for-profit and for-profit healthcare accounting and auditing. With more than a decade of accounting and finance experience, she has been successful in implementing strategic and operational initiatives to drive organizational impact.

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Irene worked at UF Health as the Controller overseeing the accounting department. She has over nine years of audit experience with PwC focusing on healthcare and investment companies. Irene is a CPA and holds a Master of Accountancy from the University of Florida.

About Dr. Richard Allen Williams

Dr. Richard Allen Williams, the Founder and President of the Minority Health Institute, 117th President of the National Medical Association and Founder of the Association of Black Cardiologists, is a cum laude honors graduate of Harvard University. He attended the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center where he received the M.D. degree. He later performed a Cardiology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 1972, he became Assistant Medical Director at the new Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hospital where he secured a $3 million dollar grant to establish the King-Drew Sickle Cell Center, of which he became the Director. Later, he moved to the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center and became Chief of the Heart Station and Head of the Cardiology Department. At present he is Clinical Professor of Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine (full Professor) and was the first African American to achieve that status in the UCLA Department of Medicine. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Harvard Medical School. In addition, he was privileged to present a scientific paper at the Oxford Round Table.

Dr. Williams is considered an international expert on hypertension, healthcare disparities, dyslipidemia, diabetes, obesity, heart failure, and sudden cardiac death. He was recently honored by the American Heart Association from which he received the prestigious LifeSaver Award. He has also received the Scroll of Merit and Distinguished Leadership Award from the National Medical Association, their highest honor.

He has authored eight books, numerous book chapters, several scholarly articles, and dozens of scientific papers. He wrote the ground-breaking Textbook of Black-Related Diseases (McGraw-Hill) in 1974 and the critically acclaimed Healthcare Disparities at the Crossroads of Healthcare Reform (Springer, 2011). His ninth book, Blacks in Medicine: Clinical, Demographic, and Socioeconomic Correlations (Springer) is in progress.

Dr. Williams has a legacy of community service including serving on the CDU Board of Directors, the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association, the Advisory Board of the Community Health Councils, and the California Jazz Foundation. He has also shown his philanthropic side by participating in National Medical Fellowships and by establishing three separate scholarship funds in his name to benefit African American medical students across the country.

About Anne Beekman

Anne Beekman joins CVAUSA with more than 30 years of experience including roles in cardiovascular nursing, hospital administrator, consultant, and industry solutions. At the heart, Anne is passionate about developing and implementing new programs that optimize resources and ultimately improve patient outcomes. She is a driven professional that prides herself in work where she can influence quality, outcomes, and cost around care delivery.

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Anne served at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, MI where she was a clinical nurse and administrator responsible for cardiovascular care in both inpatient and procedural areas. After working in the hospital space Anne worked for MedAxiom and Terumo Health Outcomes.

About Brad Tillman

Brad Tillman has vast experience in the finance and accounting field. With more than 35 years of practice, he specializes in data analytics, budgeting, and forecasting, in addition to accounts receivable management and process improvement. Tillman's skill set in finance coupled with his deep cardiovascular experience is in great alignment with CVAUSA. Prior to CVAUSA, he was controller at Prairie Cardiovascular Consultants in Springfield, Illinois where he prepared financial statements, aggregated data for board reports as well as conducted CPT and RVU analysis.

Tillman is a mission-oriented team member who constantly pushes himself to enhance and innovate existing processes. He has an eye for detail in every project he manages and prides himself on being an effective communicator.

About Travis Stamper

Travis Stamper has more than 30 years of healthcare experience, including leadership in the acute care setting, cardiovascular service line management, and strategic consulting in the cardiovascular space.  

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Stamper partnered with physicians to create two, de novo, cardiovascular-specific ambulatory surgery centers.  During his time on this two-year project, he was highly involved in every aspect of this assignment from concept to completion.  Additionally, he was previously retained to assist with negotiations of ownership arrangements between other independent physicians, a large cardiology group, and a cardiovascular-specific ASC management company, Cardiovascular Centers of America (CCA).    

Stamper is a well-rounded individual as both a leader and clinician which allows him to make the most informed decisions.  He is a trained cardiovascular invasive specialist (Cath Lab, EP, Interventional Radiology, Hybrid OR) and a licensed and registered Respiratory Therapist in Utah and Florida and holds a BS and MBA in healthcare administration from Western Governors University.  

About Lori VanderBoegh

With more than 20 years of healthcare experience, Lori brings great knowledge and learnings to CVAUSA in her position as VP, Physician Recruitment.  She has a particular focus on healthcare Executive, Clinical Leadership, and Physician Search in specialty hospitals and private equity portfolio companies. VanderBoegh creates and nurtures collaborative relationships to engage top clinical and non-clinical talent.

Prior to joining CVAUSA, VanderBoegh partnered with a National Specialty five Hospital System and its portfolio companies as well as an eleven Hospital System. As a retained search consultant, she supported their organizational talent strategy to build the Clinical leadership and Physician pipelines across their enterprises. 

When not working, VanderBoegh is passionate about supporting the needs of foster children and at-risk youth transitioning out of the foster care system as both a volunteer and Board Member of Monroe Harding in Nashville, TN. 

About Sarah Long

Sarah Long is a seasoned leader in research administration with a strong track record of centralizing and optimizing clinical research operations. She brings extensive experience in streamlining research infrastructure, enhancing compliance, and fostering collaboration between healthcare institutions and industry leaders.

In her current role, Sarah is spearheading the development of a national research network for CVAUSA clinical trials and research, expanding collaborative opportunities with industry partners and driving innovation in research infrastructure across CVAUSA clinical practices. She plays a vital role in advancing new research initiatives, strengthening clinical research capabilities, and ensuring access to groundbreaking clinical trials.

Before joining CVAUSA, Sarah led the centralization of clinical research operations for a large health system and academic medical center. She oversaw the full research lifecycle, including grants and contracts management, clinical trial patient billing, pre- and post-award administration, and the implementation of IT infrastructure to modernize and streamline research processes. She played a pivotal role in navigating institutional consolidations and mergers, successfully aligning research operations across multiple entities. Under her leadership, clinical research programs expanded significantly, providing greater access to Phase 1 through Phase 4 clinical trials for both healthcare providers and the communities they serve.

With a deep commitment to advancing research, Sarah Long continues to drive innovation, operational excellence, and collaboration in clinical research and clinical trials. She holds a Bachelor and Master of Science and is currently completing her Doctor of Science in Healthcare Leadership.

About Jamie Iedema

Jamie Iedema is the Sr. Director of Practice Support for CVAUSA, driving growth and success through developing and implementing strategic plans, optimizing operational efficiency, and ensuring regulatory compliance.

Jamie has 18+ years of progressive experience in healthcare and outpatient business operations management in cardiology and other specialty services. He received his Master of Organizational Leadership and Bachelor of Healthcare Management degrees from Bellevue University. He is also a Registry Eligible Diagnostic Cardiac Sonographer (RDCS), certified by ARDMS.

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Jamie served as the Senior Director of Operations and Interim COO at VitalSkin Dermatology, the Chief Executive Officer and Administrator at Paragon Health, P.C., the Director of Practice Operations at Holland Hospital, the Group Facility Administrator for DAVITA, and the Regional Operations Manager for Alliance/HNI Healthcare Services.

About Christopher Wilde

Christopher joins CVAUSA as Director of Compliance. With more than 20 years of experience, Christopher has the ability to drive compliance, privacy, and regulatory matters on both the local and federal levels in today’s challenging environments. He is a true team player and understands the importance of partnering across functions with both internal and external teams to bring the best to the business. When confronted with a challenge, Christopher brings high strategy and creativity to determine the best course for action and solutions.

Christopher prides himself on being an excellent communicator and change agent—this leads to taking complex situations and making them easily understandable for every audience. Prior to CVAUSA, Christopher was at American Orthopedic Partners in Palm Beach, Florida, where he developed and implemented the Ethics and Compliance Program. He led and implemented a program that reached more than 15 practice locations within 18 months. The program included robust Compliance, Privacy, and Security policies and procedures, trainings, auditing and monitoring, communication channels, and documented disciplinary actions and reporting.

He is a graduate of the University of Northern Colorado and Ellis College of New York Institute of Technology and holds a post-baccalaureate certification in health information administration from the Medical College of Georgia. He is additionally certified:

· Healthcare Compliance Certification, Health Care Compliance Association

· Healthcare Privacy Compliance Certification, Health Care Compliance Association

· Registered Health Information Administrator, American Health Information Management Association

· Healthcare Privacy and Security Certification, American Health Information Management Association

About Niki Patel

Nikita Patel is a meticulous healthcare professional who has developed and executed strategic health program initiatives to increase efficiency, improve patient care, and assure regulatory compliance. Niki is an analytical thinker with a strategic mindset who conducts thoughtful analysis and makes educational decisions to help in operational development.

She has a robust background in healthcare and business administration, as well as a polished ability to create key relationships at all levels of an organization.  Being a collaborative leader, Niki is capable of teaching and onboarding personnel, developing teams, clinical resource management, and aligning resources to achieve operational excellence.

About Denise Brown

Denise Brown is a tenured healthcare leader with a proven record of implementing sustainable operational excellence, exceeding financial goals, optimizing clinical delivery mechanisms, and developing strong physician and organizational support; all to ultimately achieve the delivery of exceptional patient care.

In addition to her operational skills, she has been a CV program developer with clinical design, budget, physical build, recruitment, and patient acquisition experience. This rich background including physician recruitment and clinical resource management expertise will be instrumental to her role at CVAUSA. 

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Brown worked at Reset Healthcare Consulting (“RHC”), where she built a consulting service focusing on the exclusive project needs of healthcare cardiology clients requiring customized organization or process redesign services. At RHC, she achieved a 200% growth of physician new patient intakes and optimized APP use by 100% within seven months to meet the demographic growth and financial requirements of a national health system.

About Amber Murdock

Amber Murdock is the Executive Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Quality and Safety, the Patient Safety Organization for CVAUSA. With 20+ years of experience in healthcare, specifically quality and performance improvement, Amber strives to accomplish the highest standards of patient care and safety. She has a deep understanding of managing quality standards, ensuring compliance with regulatory guidance, and leading accreditation efforts. A seasoned healthcare executive, she has successfully led teams and projects to improve operational efficiency and patient safety, reduce costs, and enhance patient satisfaction. Her true passion lies in process improvement.

Prior to joining CVAUSA, Amber served in multiple quality and performance improvement leadership positions in both the outpatient and acute care settings.

Amber is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality and holds an MBA from King University.

About Mitzi Benoit

Mitzi Benoit serves as Senior Director of Practice Support at Cardiovascular Associates of America, where she leads initiatives focused on operational growth, strategic execution, and financial performance across a network of cardiology practices. With more than 25 years of healthcare experience, she is a seasoned operations leader with deep expertise in practice management, credentialing, data governance, and operational efficiency.

Mitzi has built her career driving operational excellence and scalable infrastructure to support high-performing clinical organizations. Prior to joining Cardiovascular Associates of America, she served as Vice President of Operations for Cardiovascular Institute of the South, where she played a key role in advancing operational strategy and supporting the continued growth of one of the region’s leading cardiovascular programs. She has also held leadership positions with Schumacher Clinical Partners and LHC Group, gaining extensive experience across multiple healthcare delivery models.

Mitzi holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and is committed to strengthening healthcare organizations through disciplined operations, data-driven decision making, and scalable practice support.

About Libby Rohlfing

Libby Rohlfing is a seasoned healthcare executive with more than 25 years of experience in payor-provider partnerships, managed care contracting, strategic negotiations, and healthcare system innovation. She currently leads managed care contracting initiatives, payor relationship management, and strategic payer partnerships for Cardiovascular Associates of America (CVAUSA).

Before joining CVAUSA, Libby spent many years with another Webster Equity Partners portfolio company, along with several emerging healthcare technology and treatment provider companies. Throughout her career, she has successfully developed and executed payer strategies while negotiating and managing complex contractual relationships with both national and regional payers across all 50 states.

Libby is known for her collaborative approach, working closely with health plan leadership and provider organizations to align objectives and foster partnerships that improve outcomes for health plans, practices, and patients alike.

Outside of her professional work, Libby enjoys spending time with her family and outdoor activities including golf and boating.