Contact: Scott Hartman
Communications & Marketing
Lahey Clinic
(781) 744-8873
Scott.V.Hartman@lahey.org

The Lahey PHO to Function as Contracting Unit for Lahey Clinic within the new Lahey Health System.

July 9, 2012 - Bernard M. Bettencourt, Jr., DO, MPH has been appointed medical director for the Lahey Physician Hospital Organization (PHO). The Lahey PHO will function as the contracting unit for Lahey Clinic within the new Lahey Health System.

Reporting directly to Lahey Chief Quality and Safety Officer Mary Anna Sullivan, MD, Dr. Bettencourt will be responsible for monitoring inpatient and outpatient quality and cost as determined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and commercial payers in quality-driven contracts and value-based purchasing. Dr. Bettencourt recently served as medical director at Alicare Medicare Management, Inc. in Salem, New Hampshire, where he successfully performed many of the same responsibilities as those required in the new medical director role at Lahey, including utilization management, cost containment, quality improvement and case management.

Dr. Bettencourt has been an attending emergency medicine physician at Lahey Burlington since 2007. Earlier in his career, he served as chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center (DDEAMC) in Fort Gordon, Ga., and was chief of Health Services for the National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Md. He received his Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) with honors from Southeastern University of the Health Sciences in North Miami Beach, Fla, and a Master of Public Health ~ Health Services Administration from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Dr. Bettencourt completed residencies in Emergency Medicine at the Darnall Army Community Hospital in Fort Hood, Texas and in Occupational and Environmental Medicine through the National Capital Consortium in Washington, DC.

About Lahey Clinic
Lahey Clinic, a physician-led, nonprofit group practice, is world-renowned for innovative technology, pioneering medical treatment, and leading-edge research. A teaching hospital of Tufts University School of Medicine, the Clinic provides quality health care in virtually every specialty and subspecialty, from primary care to cancer diagnosis and treatment to kidney and liver transplantation. Lahey Clinic nurses also earned Magnet status from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, a recognition only achieved by five percent of American hospitals. For more information please visit our website at www.Lahey.org.