Vicki Gottlich Headed to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
The Center for Medicare Advocacy is sad to say goodbye to Vicki Gottlich, who has been a Senior Policy Attorney in our Washington, DC office since January, 2000. Vicki is taking her incredible talents and energy to theCenters for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to help implement health care reform at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight.
Vicki has been advocating for the health care rights of older people and people with disabilities for over thirty years in the non-profit advocacy world. She is widely respected in the advocacy community, as well as on Capitol Hill and in the Administration. The lightning speed with which she is able to absorb new and complex information and see the next advocacy step is remarkable. The depth and breadth of her knowledge about Medicare and related issues have been invaluable to the Center and the wider advocacy community.
Vicki's brilliance, compassion, creativity, and efficiency are priceless. She is also a dear friend and colleague. We will miss her camaraderie and our conversations about books, food and policy. The greater world is lucky to have Vicki focus on health care reform implementation, but we will surely miss her at the Center for Medicare Advocacy.
David Lipschutz Joining the Center for Medicare Advocacy's Washington, DC Office
David Lipschutz will become a Policy Attorney in the Center for Medicare Advocacy's Washington, DC office in July, 2011. David joined the Center's Connecticut office in June, 2010. During his year in our Connecticut office, David has represented dozens of individual beneficiaries and assisted with numerous policy and writing projects on the state and federal level. Prior to joining the Center, David was an attorney at California Health Advocates and the Center for Health Care Rights.
Farewell to Sally Hart
Sally Hart is retiring in September, having been a preeminent litigator for Medicare beneficiaries for over three decades. Fortunately for us, Sally has been an attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy since 1990, sharing her time with the Arizona Center for Disability Law and other firms in Tucson, Arizona. Prior to moving to Tucson, Sally was an attorney for more than fifteen years with the National Senior Citizens Law Center in Los Angeles where she pioneered efforts to ensure coverage and due process rights for Medicare beneficiaries.
Sally has represented Medicare beneficiaries in numerous class action lawsuits that expanded their rights to health services and procedural protections. Among her many accomplishments, she was lead counsel in Grijalva v. Shalala, the case that established appeal protections for beneficiaries in private Medicare plans throughout the country. In one of her more recent cases, Ball v. Biedess, the court ordered Arizona to assure that home care workers are paid enough to assure that care is provided without gaps in services. Sally has also successfully fought for Medicare dental coverage, equitable personal injury distributions when people with Medicare are injured, and comprehensible written notices for Medicare patients in all care settings.
Sally’s brilliance is only rivaled by her humility, generous mentoring, persistence, and productivity. She has been a one-woman wonder and a model of excellence. We will never find another Sally Hart. We all wish her a fulfilling and joyful retirement.
Welcome Ali Bers
The Center is pleased to welcome Ali Bers aboard for more duties. Ali has, for some time, been doing part time TPL work for us, but will now be joining us as Litigation Attorney.
Before entering private practice,Ms. Bers was a staff attorney for seven years at the Springfield office of Western Massachusetts Legal Services, specializing in public benefits issues and representing Medicare beneficiaries as part of the statewide Medicare Advocacy Project. Before joining Legal Services she was a law clerk to the Honorable Robert N. Chatigny of the U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut.
Ms. Bers serves on the Board of Directors of Square One, a non-profit provider of early education and child care for families in the Springfield area. She graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where she was an articles editor for the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.