Sandra L Berkowitz, RN, JD most recently was the Practice Leader of global insurance broker Willis’ robust National Managed Care Specialty Practice, retiring in June, 2014. For the 23 years previous to her joining Willis, she was with Johnson & Higgins and then Marsh, acting as an insurance and risk advisor. As a nurse and an attorney, Ms Berkowitz built a multi-million dollar managed care practice from her strategic vision of how reimbursement of healthcare services would evolve, and the risks inherent in those business models. She is located in Philadelphia.

Ms. Berkowitz’s experience prior to her managed care practice specialization includes four years in health care risk management consulting operations and seven years as casualty broker and account manager for Philadelphia health care industry and insurance company clients. She frequently initiates and edits healthcare risk publications, and is especially sought after for policyholder coverage analysis necessitated by ballooning industry claim experiences.

She graduated with highest honors from University of California Medical Center, San Francisco, where she received her B.S. in Nursing, and from Temple University School of Law, receiving her J.D. She is co-founder of The American Association of Nurse Attorneys and is past president of The American Association of Nurse Attorneys Foundation.

As Director of the East Boston Day Hospital, Ms. Berkowitz first ran into third party payer resistance to reimbursing nursing for their professional services; managed care contracting with nurse-led facilities has been a project of passion ever since. In 2004 she began her consulting relationship with the National Nursing Centers Consortium, and in 2007, together with NNCC, celebrated consummation of the first commercial Primary Care Provider contracts with Nurse Managed Health Centers in Southeast Pennsylvania. Since that achievement Ms Berkowitz has focused on the development of a for-profit multi-state Nurse-Practitioner-friendly primary care network whose mandate is to increase payer contracting opportunities for Nurse Practitioners and primary care choices for health care consumers.