Day Two - Thursday, June 18, 2026*Times and Content Subject to Change
*All times listed in CT
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Today's Healthcare Landscape and the Road Ahead
Willie Underwood III, MD, MSc, MPH,
President-elect, American Medical Association
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How to Use the U.N.I.Q.U.E Formula to Discover Your Personal Power
Dr. Christopher Fairbank, DBA
Educator, Assistant Professor and Communications Expert
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Refreshment Break/Visit Our Sponsor Partners
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Focus Sessions
Boots on the Ground Essentials: 25 Things to Know About Your AAPL Membership
Sara-Elizabeth Bush
Physician Liaison, Western Kentucky Market, UK Healthcare
Michele Brock
Physician Liaison, UK Healthcare
This session explores building a high-impact liaison team that evolves with healthcare needs. Attendees will learn how new liaisons can break through barriers and build meaningful connections, while mature teams become engines for business development and relationship management. The session highlights strategies to enhance patient care through coordination, actionable data, and strategic relationships, showing how liaison teams can drive organizational impact.
From Underdog to Contender: Building New Market Presence When Bigger Systems Dominate
Mike Becallo
Physician Liaison, Oswego Health
Entering a new market already dominated by larger health systems can feel daunting for any community hospital. This session presents a real-world “New Market Playbook” designed to help smaller organizations compete through data, strategy, and genuine local connection. Attendees will learn practical steps to assess opportunity, build trust with physicians, and create measurable growth in even the most competitive environments. Walk away with proven tactics and the confidence to make your mark where the big players already stand.
Where Do We Grow From Here?!
Cindy Ferst
Vice President Business Development, Emory Healthcare
What's next when you've been a liaison for years, and what else can you do! Leading teams means more than just supporting efforts and providing resources. Great leaders are able to help develop their team members to understand what they are looking for in their next role and how to get there.
Roundin’ Up Referrals: How to Work Smarter with Gatekeepers, Case Managers/Referral Coordinators, and Providers
Lacee Keller
Physician Liaison, Shriners Children’s Hospital
This presentation will cover the dynamic relationship between Physician Liaison and gate keeper, case manager/referral coordinator, and provider. Attendees will learn how to bring value that matters to each of the three referral persons. Learn techniques that stretch over a broad spectrum of liaison types while creating lasting relationships.
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Focus Sessions - Group Two
Special Events: Building Engagement Through Recognition and Celebration
Chris Foard, MSN, RN
Physician Liaison, Bayhealth Medical Center
This session will demonstrate the impact of well-planned, thematic recognition events that have been successfully held for the past ten years. It highlights the role of senior leadership in strengthening relationships with physicians through purposeful celebration. The presentation also showcases a two-member Physician Liaison team with 19 years of combined experience, emphasizing a culture of reward, trust, and enjoyment within the medical staff.
The Liaison Launchpad: Competencies, Strategy, and Networking for Accelerated Promotion
Jamie Hamilton
Regional Director of Business Development, Ivy Rehab Network
This session provides Physician Liaisons with a clear blueprint for transitioning into management and leadership roles. Attendees will learn to identify key strategic competencies, build a personalized multi-year career roadmap, and develop high-value networks with senior administrative and policy decision-makers. By combining strengthened leadership skills with targeted networking, participants will gain the tools needed to accelerate their career trajectory and position themselves for promotion.
Service Line Growth Strategies: Innovative Ideas to Grow Key Specialties and Real Success Stories
Alice Hou
Market Outreach Executive Liaison, Stanford Medicine
Lynn Johnson
Market Outreach Executive Liaison, Stanford Medicine
Physician Liaisons are tasked with supporting service line growth but are frequently not provided with the specific tools or frameworks to achieve it. This session will equip you with proven strategies, outreach approaches, and practical techniques to meaningfully influence growth.
Code to Care: A Framework for Contextualizing and Implementing AI in Healthcare
Albert Villarin, MD, MBA, FACEP
Vice President & Chief Medical Information Officer, Nuvance - Northwell Health
Salim Afshar, MD, FACS
Faculty & AI Translation Lead, Health Systems Innovation Lab, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Vice President of Innovation, Essen Health Care
This session will introduce a practical, question-based framework designed to help healthcare leaders understand how to translate the evolving field of AI into meaningful, context-specific strategies. Rather than starting with algorithms or tools, we begin with purpose—asking what problems are most pressing in your environment, what business and clinical objectives need to be addressed, and what capabilities—technical and human—are needed to address them.
Drawing on real-world experience in clinical care, implementation science, and systems thinking, the presentation will guide participants through a structured approach to AI adoption that balances both opportunity and caution. Attendees will learn to identify the core elements required for successful implementation, including data readiness, workforce alignment, workflow integration, and governance models.
AI can improve outcomes, reduce burden, and bring clarity to complex decision-making, but only if implementation efforts reflect the realities of your context. This talk isn’t about pursuing innovation for its own sake. It’s about equipping your teams to build a disciplined pattern of learning, consultation, and action—rooted in your local constraints and opportunities. The goal is to cultivate a culture shift that aligns vision with practice and enables durable, sustainable transformation.
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Focus Sessions
Community Provider Experience Survey: Measuring Referring Provider Satisfaction
Matthew Hughes
Director of Physician Relations, Children's Hospital Colorado
Resiliency and Reinvention: Redefining the Liaison Role to Maximize Strategic Value
Brian H. Potenski
Trauma & PennSTAR Prehospital Liaison/Coordinator, Penn Medicine Navy Partnership Liaison, Penn Medicine
This presentation explores how Physician Liaisons can evolve beyond traditional definitions to thrive in unconventional roles and deliver greater strategic value across departments. Through personal stories, practical insights, and real-world challenges, we’ll examine how liaisons can redefine their impact, build resilience, and take actionable steps to rethink their role in today’s dynamic healthcare landscape.
Building From the Ground Up: Crafting the Future of BD Work for Single Specialty Organizations
Bonnie Little-Hildebrandt
Director, Business Development, Wake Radiology
UNC Health Rex
Building or rebuilding a program is never easy. How do you blaze a trail without burning everything in its path? We will discuss building leadership trust and understanding, gain agreement on goals and resources and build a strategic framework for the path ahead.
Building Your Internal Sales Plan: Strengthening Referral Growth from the Inside Out
Susan Boydell
Principal, Barlow/McCarthy
Tricia Anderson
Senior Consultant, Barlow/McCarthy Physician Liaison teams excel at external outreach. Sustainable referral growth requires just as much intentional strategy inside the organization as it does in the field. This session will show you how to build and execute an internal sales plan that deepens credibility with key clinical and operational leaders, expands your clinical understanding, sharpens organizational alignment, and ensures your work is tied directly to system priorities. Participants will learn how to engage internal stakeholders to uncover insights about referral flow, patient pathways, and organizational priorities—gaining the knowledge needed to target high-opportunity areas and align field strategy with what truly drives growth.
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Sponsored Focus Sessions
Don't Blame the Fax Machine: Modernizing Intake with AI and Smart Fax
Sponsored by Promptly
Shaun Priest
SVP, Growth, Promptly
Michelle Pelletier
Director of Product Experience, Promptly
This session explores the practical application of AI in referral processing, addressing friction caused by high volumes and messy handwritten referrals. Attendees will learn how AI-powered smart fax systems can "read" incoming paper referrals, and how to champion this technology to save staff time, reduce burnout, and create a frictionless experience for referring providers. The session equips liaisons with strategies to improve operational efficiency and enhance provider relationships.
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Refreshment Break/Visit Our Sponsor Partners
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Focus Sessions
Boots on the Ground: Liaison Programs in Action
Michele Brock
Physician Liaison, UK HealthCare Internal Barriers are Killing Referrals: Learn to Fix Them Even Without Authority
Kelly Montgomery
Provider Relations Project Director, Community Health Systems
Often, referring providers are not moving their business because the competitor down the road is better. Instead, there are likely internal barriers frustrating patients and staff. Attendees will leave this discussion with a better understanding of how to identify these barriers, how to gather evidence, and how to use their influence in a way that drives action to create solutions.
Using Digital Tools to Strengthen the Liaison’s Value Proposition
Lisa Edwards
Manager, Physician Relations, Corewell Health West
This session demonstrates how Physician Liaisons can leverage EpicCare Link and digital outreach through PRM platforms to strengthen provider engagement, streamline communication, and improve access to patient information. Attendees will learn practical strategies to integrate these tools into their workflows, measure their impact, and position themselves as indispensable partners in care coordination and referral management.
Stronger Together: Developing Teams for Market Impact
Rebecca Rajnoch
Regional Liaison Manager, Texas Oncology
This presentation explores how marketing and liaison teams can work in harmony to drive meaningful growth and strengthen internal and referral relationships. We will highlight the critical value of alignment between these functions, demonstrating why collaboration is essential for market impact. Attendees will gain insight into proven best practices, including strategies, tools, and workflows that enhance communication and joint planning. Additionally, we will outline initiatives designed to foster team development and engagement—building trust, improving cross-functional skills, and creating a culture of collaboration that empowers both teams to succeed together.
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Focus Sessions
Solving Access Barriers in Specialty Clinics Through the Referring Physician Experience
Jen Morgan
Manager of Physician Relations
The University of Kansas Health System
The Liaison Formula: Why Authenticity Beats a Sales Pitch Every Time
Stephanie Biblewski, MBA
Market Manager, Business Development, Cook Children's Health Care System
Sadie Crouch, MA, BSN, RN
Physician Liaison, Cook Children's Health Care System
If you've ever tried to define the PL role, you've realized how ambiguous it can feel. But, that might actually be a gift! There's margin for how you do your job. Sure, you have to know your territory, and you have to know your product. Beyond that? There's room to spice it up. And we think that's the key to loving your job.
Junk the Junk Mail: Going Digital and Getting Strategic with Your Collateral
Sean Bradley
Provider Outreach Consultant - Heart & Vascular
Emory Healthcare
Andy Cessac
Senior Marketing Manager, Emory Healthcare
This session explores transitioning from printed mailers to digital campaigns. Presenters will share their journey and illustrate how a close partnership between outreach and marketing teams can create a seamless process for timely, effective messaging to referral providers. Attendees will gain actionable strategies for collaboration, targeting, and measuring campaign success.
The Dreaded Stark Law: What Every Physician Liaison Should Know
Robert Allen Wade, Esq.
The Stark Law is complicated. Physician Liaisons do interact with physicians that implicate the Stark Law. Attendees will gain a working understanding of the Stark Law and what items physician liaisons provide to referring physicians implicate the Stark Law. The presentation will also discuss the best practice for tracking non-monetary compensation.
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Optional Networking Event
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