Melissa Estrella

I started my career after graduating with my nursing degree, but I decided I wanted to do something more on the back end instead of direct nursing, so I went and got my master's in healthcare administration. That led me into claims work across various different specialties like laboratory, hospice, and regular provider specialties like primary care. I then moved over into the health plan side, where I did post-claims evaluation, assisting providers with their claims, their denials, their issues, and trying to get the claims situated and paid for the services that they render to the patient. With that knowledge and background, it pulled me into the contracting aspect of healthcare, so now I'm contracting providers and doing more contract language work, which kind of sets me up to where I want to end up long-term, which is in healthcare policy advocacy. Currently, I manage a small team as Senior Manager of Contracting and Network Development, and that's going to change in a couple of weeks when I get 7 more people under me. I delegate work to the employees, support them tremendously, and I even do hands-on work, getting into the nitty-gritty with the team to assist with day-to-day contracting providers, troubleshooting claims issues, and working with the team to develop their career path and career goals. My most notable professional achievement has been moving into management and being able to support my team, and the real eye-opener for me was when I ended up having to go out on leave, they were there to support me. That's the biggest achievement of my career - being able to support my team, but in turn, having them being able to support me.