About US

Judi has 30 years of experience as a leader of professional service organizations, a Fortune 500 strategy consultant and personal advisor to CEOs. She is the founder of Colchester Consulting Group that specializes in solving organizations’ most perplexing problems through unconventional partnerships and approaches. Previous positions include President of The Concours Group, Managing Director at CSC Index and Vice President and Partner with Bain & Company. In 2010, Judi launched the Behavioral Economics Academic Consortium. Organized to promote financial and social impact through a unique research collaboration between academia and industry, the BE Consortium is focused on predicting and influencing individual behavior to improve health and well being, promote consumer engagement and trust and reduce unnecessary health expenses. Judi conceptualized and founded The Medicare NewsGroup (www.medicarenewsgroup.com) in 2011, an independent media organization committed to elevating the national conversation on Medicare to a more informed and intelligent debate. Judi serves as Publisher and Chief Evangelist and is responsible for the strategic evolution of the organization. She also manages the day to day business operations.

E.J. is an award-winning editor and reporter. Over the course of his 27 plus-year career, he has mentored and nurtured Pulitzer Prize winners, top reporters and editors. His protégés hold senior posts around the country, a tribute to his journalism insights and management skills. He has worked for Gannett newspaper operations around the country, including The Detroit News, The Tennessean (Nashville), The Enquirer (Cincinnati) and the Courier Journal (Louisville). He earned his chops as an editor who oversaw investigative and explanatory journalism; works that delved into a deeper examination of the issues.  As a police reporter at The Detroit News in 1989, he worked with a team of reporters covering Nelson Mandela’s U.S. tour and the corruption in the Detroit Police Department, which resulted in the police chief being sentenced to federal prison. E.J. moved into management, where he coined the term “carjacking” and conceived of a yearlong special report titled “Who Speaks for Black America?,”  in which he directed a team that produced groundbreaking coverage examining the relevance of all of the African-American civil rights organizations. As The Detroit News managing editor, he oversaw a report that was named a 2003 Pulitzer Prize finalist in Public Service. The investigative project “Hiding in Plain Sight,” revealed dangerous defects and spurred changes in a criminal justice system that allowed lawbreakers to get away with everything from petty theft to murder. E.J. has spent his career committed to helping journalists improve their craft. In 2002, 2003, 2009 and 2010, he served as a Pulitzer Prize juror. He was named Gannett Supervisor of the Year in 1996 and 1998. He is also a former member of the Associated Press Managing Editors board. 

Follow E.J. on Twitter @MNG_Mitchell.

Alison Szot is an experienced journalist and communication strategist and holds a Master of Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. She has more than 15 years of experience working in traditional and corporate journalism. She has worked on staff at numerous Chicago-area hospitals and health care organizations, reporting on both clinical and organizational issues, as well as at Modern Healthcare and Modern Physician, where she served as an online editor.

Helen is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism with a Master of Science degree. Before joining The Medicare NewsGroup, she worked as a freelance reporter for the Windy City Times in Chicago and The Ann Arbor Chronicle in Michigan. 

Follow Helen on Twitter @MedicareNewsGrp. She signs her tweets with ^hra.

Donald holds a Master of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University, where he reported on urban affairs and helped create a digital strategy for the Chicago Reporter. His work has been published in The Times of Northwest Indiana and Austin Weekly News. 

Follow Donald on Twitter @MedicareNewsGrp. He signs his tweets with ^ds.

Kimber holds a Master of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University, where he reported on health and science. He is a California Endowment Health Journalism Fellow and has worked as a reporter at The Salinas Californian and The Racine Journal Times.

Follow Kimber on Twitter @MedicareNewsGrp. He signs his tweets with ^ks.

Lila is a freelance copy editor. She worked for six years as the managing editor of an academic journal, and with her own company she works with academic, business, and creative writers. She is currently the web editor for Chicago Women in Publishing.

Neesa has been a consultant and writer for over 25 years.  She has written for the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, Crain's Chicago Business and numerous airline and general interest magazines.  She is the former Director of Learning and Development at the Sun-Times News Group and consults with Fortune 500 companies, health insurance companies, and other organizations on leadership, change and communications.  

Nicole Vahlkamp is a graduate of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy (M.P.P 2011), where she focused on health care and economic policy. She has been researching and writing about the economic implications of Medicare reform for the Medicare News Group since its launch. Nicole analyzes the issues facing Medicare from both a public policy and private sector perspective, having worked in both sectors, as an analyst for the Government Accountability Office, as well as in finance for over three years. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Maryland with her B.A. in Economics, and Government & Politics.

Keren holds a Bachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is trilingual, and before joining The Medicare NewsGroup worked internationally specializing in English curriculum development.

Terry Gray, CFO & Chief Administrative Officer has over 25 years of experience in the computer software and services industry as a financial and operational leader. He has significant experience in public offerings, start-up operations and system implementations. Previous work also includes seven years of public accounting with Price Waterhouse.

Barbara leverages thirty years of industry and consulting expertise to drive growth and performance improvement by simplifying complex and ambiguous programs and processes into manageable tasks and activities. Barbara is an accomplished entrepreneur who built a multi-million dollar national nutritional supplement marketing and distribution company. As a consultant, she worked on customer experience design and the customer acquisition and retention process for several companies.. Barbara is a graduate of Colgate University and Harvard Business School.

Karen Keefe is the Executive Assistant to the Publisher and the Office Manager. Karen has over 25 years of experience in her joint roles and throughout her career has supported C Level Executives at various companies.

Arthur holds a B.A. in mathematics from Lawrence University, where he focused on linear algebra and non-Euclidean geometries.  Before joining The Medicare NewsGroup, Arthur worked as a project manager and researcher in the construction industry. 

Michael is a nationally recognized expert on patient empowerment, e-health and quality improvement and holds an adjunct appointment as the Mervin Shalowitz, M.D. Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He spent 13 years as the health reporter for the Chicago Tribune, where he was nominated for three Pulitzer Prizes.

John is an award winning author of 13 books. Platform speaker and personal finance columnist/blogger for Reuters covering investing/investor protection, financial planning, taxes, insurance, retirement, college and life planning. Published on five continents. Regular commentator on top economic news in all media including NBC, CNN, and Bloomberg TV. Earned 18 awards for his columns and investigative reporting, including the National Press Club award for Consumer Journalism.

Steve Bates is a freelance journalist based in the Washington, D.C., area. He was a reporter and editor for The Washington Post for 14 years and has written for magazines and the web. Steve has won numerous awards for his work, including a Jesse H. Neal Award for business journalism in 2009 and an investigative reporting award in 1990 for team coverage of riots in Virginia Beach, Va.

Victoria Forlini, Publisher and Writer. Currently a copy editor for Congressional Quarterly and Editorial Manager for the American Geophysical Union which publishes 5,500 articles in 17 journals every year. She was formerly the publisher for DecisionHealth’s Home Health Coding Group which focuses on diagnosis, coding and skilled services issues in home health care and Medicare. Prior to that, she was an editor at Meredith Corps, a $1 billion dollar publisher, responsible for production of dozens of books and magazines.

Dr. Hirth is a widely recognized expert in insurance, health care costs, ownership of health care providers, long-term care and end-stage renal disease care. His work has been featured in over 60 publications, including the Journal of Health Economics, Inquiry, Health Services Research, Health Affairs, Medical Care and the Journal of the American Medical Association. He has been the recipient of the Kenneth Arrow Award in Health Economics, the Excellence in Research Award in Health Policy from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation and the Thompson Prize for Young Investigators. He serves as a deputy editor of Medical Care.

Theodore R. Marmor, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy and Management and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Yale University, is a leading expert in the United States on Medicare, health care reform and aging. The author or co-author of eleven books, including “The Politics of Medicare,” he has published hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and frequently writes opinion essays for numerous U.S. newspapers. He is a founding member of the National Association of Social Insurance and former Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policies Scholars Program. He has consulted for the government and non-profit agencies, along with testifying before Congress on medical care reform, social security and welfare issues.

J. Duncan Moore Jr. is a longtime health care journalist in Chicago. Currently a freelancer, he has written for the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Kansas City Star, Bloomberg News and KaiserHealthNews. Moore has been a staff reporter at Bloomberg News, Modern Healthcare and the Kansas City Star. Moore is a co-founder of the Association of Health Care Journalists.

Carol Morton, Science Writer in Residence, Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School and freelance journalist/writer. Previously, Carol held similar positions at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brown University. She has spent more than 20 years reporting, writing, assigning and editing news and features in health, medicine, science and public policy for major newspapers, magazines, scientific journals, leading research universities, and websites. Her expertise is in evidence-based medicine, clinical research, peer-reviewed studies, scholarly and open access publishing, basic biomedical research, research funding, and conflicts of interest.

Susan Pasternak is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience writing about a wide spectrum of industries including health care, finance and government. Pasternak was a staff reporter for Bloomberg News and her stories have been featured in publications such as The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. In 1998, Susan was awarded the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism for a series she wrote on the sagging agricultural economy.

Bob Rosenblatt senior fellow, National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI), is a columnist and editorial board member for Aging Today, newspaper of the American Society on Aging. He spent more than 25 years as a Washington correspondent for the Los Angeles Times covering economics and health policy.

Mark Taylor is an independent health journalist who writes about the business, policy, financing and delivery of health care for The Medicare NewsGroup, Hospitals & Health Networks and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was a legal affairs reporter for Crain's Modern Healthcare Magazine and was a health and medical reporter for the Gary (Ind.) Post Tribune. Taylor is a co-founder of the Association of Health Care Journalists and is a former Kaiser Media Fellow.