Healthcare operations depth, with a founder’s sense of urgency...

 Gaylene's foundation was built over 14 years at The Kempton Group, where she rose from Customer Service Manager to Executive Vice President of Operations and ultimately Executive Vice President. She led a 25+ person TPA Operations Department, served as the company's HIPAA/HITECH Compliance Officer, and helped launch the Kempton Premier Provider Program, which delivered over $26 million in client savings at a 5-to-1 ROI. She also served on the Board of the Texas Association of Benefits Administrators and was a Charter Member of the PHX Customer Advisory Council.

 Gaylene spent nearly five years as Chief Operations Officer of The Zero Card, a $0 out-of-pocket healthcare company, where she built the operational infrastructure to scale the business from 24 to 117 employer clients and from 26,261 to 92,129 covered lives, tripling monthly referrals and growing monthly GMV from $751K to over $2.5M. She led provider, member, and client success teams, built the company's KPI/OKR framework, and authored the SOPs that carried the organization through rapid growth. 

 Most recently, Gaylene served as founding Chief Operations Officer of Benefit-Smart Healthcare, a value-based cancer care company, where she built the operational engine from the ground up — growing monthly referrals more than 6x, doubling revenue year over year, scaling claims volume 20x, and cutting claims turnaround time from 90% of claims taking over 90 days to 90% closing in under 30 days.  She oversaw patient referrals, implementation, and ongoing case management. She was instrumental in automation of in-bound and out-bound 837 and in-house repricing.  

I've spent 30+ years in operations, and my COO role has always reported directly to the CEO. I've built operations from the ground up at two startups.  Today I help founders get out of the weeds and back to leading. 

I spent 14 years at The Kempton Group, a full-service TPA, rising to EVP of Operations. I was founding COO of Benefit-Smart and The Zero Card. I know claims administration, provider relations, HIPAA/HITECH and value-based care from the inside.