From the Boardroom to the Kitchen Table: What 35 Years of Healthcare Leadership Taught Me About Serving People
At Work and Beyond
INFLUENTIAL WOMEN 2026 – FEATURED ARTICLE
Sharon Stohlman, MS, BSBA, CPC | Aurora, CO | SharonCodingPro@gmail.com
From the Boardroom to the Kitchen Table: What 35 Years of Healthcare Leadership Taught Me About Serving People—At Work and Beyond
By Sharon Stohlman, MS, BSBA, CPC | Healthcare Revenue Cycle Executive & Founder, Sassy Girlfriends™
I have spent 35 years in healthcare—building coding departments from the ground up, leading workforces of 300+, protecting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and sitting across the table from VPs and CFOs delivering data they needed to make critical decisions. I have been a Union Steward, a claims processor, a biller, a coder, a lead, an educator, an auditor, a supervisor, a manager, a compliance champion, a department builder, a mentee, a mentor, and a leader whom her staff affectionately called “Boss” long after she walked out the door.
And I have also been the woman sitting alone at her kitchen table, burned out beyond recognition, wondering how she got so lost—crying because I didn’t know how to fix my work life, didn’t know how to change it, or what to do next.
Both of those women are me. And both of those stories matter.
The metrics in healthcare revenue cycle are everything. But behind every metric is a patient—a person. I teach that to my staff: we need to support our customers, and yes, even our physicians, coworkers, and other departments are our customers. But staff—at all levels—are customers too. Our wellbeing is just as important. And that is where real leadership begins.
The journey matters as much as the destination—and that includes your work life. We live in a culture of “I hate Mondays” and “I can’t wait for Friday,” quietly wishing away the hours, days, and years we spend doing what we do. But what if work could be as rich, meaningful, and genuinely enjoyable as your best vacation? It can be. Not every day—but far more often than we have been told to expect.
Don’t settle for a career you are simply surviving. Find the work that makes Monday feel like possibility. Find the team that makes showing up feel like belonging. Find the leader who makes you better. And when you find those things, pour yourself into them fully. The work years are not the years between the good parts of your life—they ARE part of your life. Don’t miss them.
Building From the Ground Up—Twice
I joined Kaiser Permanente as a temporary employee. I didn’t walk in with a title or a plan—I walked in with a willingness to work and a belief that if I showed up fully, something good would happen.
Something good did happen. My supervisor at the time said something to me during my very first days that I have carried for over two decades:
“You work for me—and I need to work for you, honor you, and be here when you need me.”
In that moment, I understood what leadership was supposed to look like: not hierarchy, not authority, but partnership. I went from temporary employee to permanent coder, to lead, to supervisor—and eventually to Union Steward, where I operated at the executive level alongside directors, VPs, HR, and Legal, helping shape the Labor-Management Partnership model that Kaiser is nationally recognized for.
At UCHealth, I was handed an even bigger canvas. I joined during a major expansion and was trusted to build their OP Facility coding department from the ground up—scaling from one hospital to 13, from a handful of staff to 300+ coding professionals, and from a regional operation to an enterprise covering the entire Colorado Front Range and beyond, with a monthly AR portfolio exceeding $298 million.
I was also selected as 1 of 14 participants from a pool of 7,500+ employees for UCHealth’s Leadership Academy—their executive leadership development program. That selection confirmed something I had always known but rarely said aloud: the scope of my work had always exceeded my title—and that I was worth investing in.
Results come from people who feel supported, challenged, and valued. I have $6.5 million in revenue protection to prove it—and a team that called me “Boss” as a term of endearment.
The Advice That Changed Everything
Three pieces of advice have shaped my career more than any credential or promotion.
The first came from that same supervisor who signed my very first timecard as a temporary employee. Her belief that leadership is a two-way partnership—that authority doesn’t just flow down, but up as well, and that those above you owe something to those below—became my north star.
The second came during a training session at Kaiser, when some of my colleagues were grumbling about learning something outside their job description. Our supervisor stopped us:
“Don’t grumble—think about it as free training. You are being honored by being chosen. Always look at additional training as experience your competitors don’t have.”
I never turned down a stretch assignment after that. Every uncomfortable responsibility became an opportunity I leaned into instead of away from.
The third came from Dean Graziosi, and it stopped me cold: what we portray in public is the direct result of all the work we do in private. Every result the world sees is the outcome of hours of integrity, learning, and quiet practice done when no one is watching.
Three degrees earned magna cum laude while working full time, raising a child alone, and navigating some of the hardest personal seasons of my life. A CPC certification passed on the first attempt—during a divorce, a custody battle, and a VP confrontation—all in the same season. These weren’t performances. They were the harvest of what I had planted in private.
When Integrity Costs You Something
I want to tell you something most professional bios leave out: doing the right thing is not always immediately rewarded.
There was a season late in my healthcare career where I worked for a leader whose behavior crossed professional lines—repeatedly and publicly. I chose not to participate. And I was punished for it—systematically, subtly, and then not so subtly. Comments in meetings. Public exclusion. A Christmas party where every colleague received a gift except me.
This was during the early months of COVID, when I was working 18-hour days as essential personnel, when a family member was hospitalized for mental health, and when my own mental health was fracturing under the weight of it all. I eventually took a medical leave of absence—four months of intensive outpatient care, therapy, medication, group support, and work with a career coach for a toxic workplace.
When I returned, I saw the writing on the wall. I gave my notice. And before I left, I filed a formal compliance complaint. She was eventually asked to resign.
My team cried when I told them I was leaving. Many quit after I did. I ran into a former employee at a conference, and she introduced me to a new coworker as “the best boss she ever had.” She didn’t win. I did.
I share this not for sympathy, but because young women entering any industry need to know: toxic leadership is real, it is targeted, and it is survivable. Document everything. Know your rights. File the complaint. And never let someone else’s dysfunction become your identity.
How Burnout Built a Brand
That toxic workplace experience—combined with decades of watching high-performing women quietly fall apart while appearing completely fine on the outside—led me to found Sassy Girlfriends™.
I was the woman I now serve. Burned out. Overwhelmed. Going through every emotion of a full life without truly feeling any of it. Leading hundreds of people while running on empty. Looking like I had it together while a box of unopened mail sat in my basement for years—bills I couldn’t face, appointments rescheduled four times, the private life of a woman spinning every visible plate while frozen in the ones no one could see.
That’s what I call The Spin-Freeze™. Spinning where the world can see you. Frozen where nobody’s watching. Most high-functioning women live in both simultaneously—and nobody talks about it. Most of the time we can function through it, but there always comes a point when we can’t.
Sassy Girlfriends™ was born to break that silence. Named for my late Shih Tzu, Sassy—whose unconditional love carried me through my hardest season—the brand delivers practical, mindfulness-based tools, digital products, workbooks, journals, and coaching to help women move from overwhelm to intention. Not performance. Not perfection. Presence.
The brand I built from my kitchen table is the direct result of every wound I refused to waste.
What I Would Tell Every Woman Entering This Field
Know your worth before someone else assigns it for you. You will be given director-scope work with a manager title. You will be underestimated in rooms where you are the most prepared person present. Build your competencies deliberately and loudly enough that your reputation speaks before you walk in.
Find your mentor—the leader who says, “You work for me, and I need to work for you.” Learn everything from her. And then become her for someone else. We all start somewhere and start new at something. Be the leader who reaches back to help others over the bridge you crossed.
Never stop learning. Every new responsibility is free training. Every uncomfortable assignment is experience your competitors don’t have. You can learn anything. You can do anything.
Enjoy the journey—especially the work journey. We live in a culture that celebrates hating Mondays and counting down to Fridays, quietly wishing away the years we spend building our careers. But your work life is not the space between the good parts of your life—it IS part of your life. Find work that makes Monday feel like possibility. Find a team that makes showing up feel like belonging. Find a leader who makes you better. And when you find those things, pour yourself into them completely. A career you love is not a luxury—it is something worth fighting for. Don’t settle for less.
Protect your integrity like it is your most valuable professional asset—because it is. There will be moments when going along would be easier. Don’t. Your reputation is built in those quiet moments of refusal. It will follow you everywhere long after the job is gone.
And finally, if you ever find yourself in a toxic environment: document, report, and leave on your own terms. You are not the problem. You are not alone. And you are not lucky to have a job that diminishes you. You can always find a place—and people—worthy of you, and who will treat you with the respect you deserve: not just as an employee, but as a human being.
The Values That Guide Everything
In both my work and personal life, I return again and again to four values: integrity, genuine human connection, continuous growth, and service.
Integrity, because I have paid the price for it—and I would pay it again.
Genuine human connection, because results come from people who feel seen—and I have never forgotten what it felt like to be seen for the first time by a leader who meant it.
Continuous growth, because the moment you decide you know enough is the moment you start falling behind.
And service—because it is the thread that runs through everything. My 30 years singing in my church choir. My volunteer work with food banks, Meals on Wheels, Colorado Puppy Rescue, and Operation Christmas Child. My compliance complaint filed on behalf of every person who came after me. And Sassy Girlfriends™—built not because it was a business opportunity, but because I saw women suffering in silence and I had something to offer.
Service isn’t what I do. It’s who I am.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sharon Stohlman, MS, BSBA, CPC, is a healthcare revenue cycle and coding executive with 35+ years of progressive leadership across Kaiser Permanente (14 years) and UCHealth (8 years), where she built departments from the ground up, led workforces of 300+, and protected $298M+ in monthly AR. She is a two-time recipient of Kaiser Permanente’s PEAK Award, was selected as 1 of 14 from 7,500+ employees for UCHealth’s Leadership Academy executive development program, and holds an active CPC credential with CPMA in progress. Sharon is also the Founder of Sassy Girlfriends™, a women’s wellness brand dedicated to helping women—especially those in healthcare—move from overwhelm to intention. She is based in Aurora, Colorado.
Connect: SharonCodingPro@gmail.com | linkedin.com/in/sharon-stohlman-codingmanagementmaster | sassygirlfriends.com
