UK: NHS
With vast experience in healthcare consulting solutions, AArete helps the UK health system improve patient health outcomes and reduce costs. We leverage our experience, data-driven strategies and superior market intelligence to implement solutions that improve a variety of business elements impacting both clinical outcomes and system costs, with guaranteed results.
AArete works with all types of organisations across the UK healthcare ecosystem including CCGs, STPs, ICSs, Acute Trusts, Mental Health Trusts, Community Services and Primary Care, particularly PCNs and more. We partner with our clients to improve their effectiveness by leveraging our healthcare experience with analytics and technology capabilities to implement solutions that are customised to each client’s unique needs. AArete works across various business functions to drive client value, with a focus on improving health outcomes while driving operational efficiencies and reducing cost pressures.
Capabilities
Innovative Contract Structures
AArete helps you develop and design outcomes/value-based contract structures such as incentives for performance, bundled payments, shared savings, shared risk, full capitation, etc. We leverage our experience from US value-based contracting and our understanding of how it works in the UK to help clients shift from tariff/transaction-based reimbursement to outcomes-based compensation. We support your team with an end-to-end solution, but, most importantly, we help you build trust and rapport with your value-based partners to ensure everyone is working together to improve patient outcomes. Does your organisation already have innovative contract structures? AArete can help you review, root cause and strategise solutions for existing, underperforming value-based structures to improve the partnership and ultimately, patient care.
Key activities:
• Programme development
-Structure
-Modelling
-Trust development
• Operationalisation
-Tools/dashboards
-Reporting
-Joint operating committees
• Post operationalisation
-Evaluation of performances
-Best practices & root causing
-Reassessment
Capacity and Flow Management
We have developed demand and supply analyses to identify optimisation opportunities for your organisation. AArete works with you to improve service-line patient flow, length of stay, whole system pathway, readmissions and more. Furthermore, we identify opportunities for you to improve your organisation’s productivity and delivery of care with actionable analytics that include workforce configuration, whole pathway cost of care comparisons, right care-right place-right time, etc.
Drill-down Analytics-based Population Health
What patients are driving the most costs and not receiving the appropriate care? What types of interventions will be the most impactful to improve each patient’s outcome? AArete performs drill-down analyses of cost and quality metrics by sub-cohorts, counties, diagnosis, demographics, attributed GP, etc. to help you elevate your care management strategy to improve patient outcomes. Beyond assessing trends, AArete supports with root cause identification and optimisation of care delivery. We develop custom case management programmes with your team to improve cost-quality mix.
Key activities:
• Data analysis to identify drivers of low-quality/high-cost trends
• Develop client-tailored strategies to address root causes
• Assess implementation effectiveness & patient health outcomes
Custom Predictive Modeling and Machine Learning Solutions
How do you go beyond risk stratification to predict patients who appear relatively healthy, but are actually the ‘rising risk’ population? AArete leverages predictive modelling and machine-learning capabilities to help NHS entities identify patients with the most “rising risk” to deploy preventative strategies to improve patient outcomes. We develop custom models for target diagnosis, cohorts, etc. (e.g.: NICU, Opioids Abuse, Atrial Fibrillation as a predictor of stroke, and any others specific to your patients) based on your historical patient experience. One developed, we embed these models to your current processes and train your staff on how to operate the model on a go-forward basis.
We leverage machine learning to predict:
• “Rising risk” patient cohorts
• Patients most likely to visit A&E or hospital in the next 6 months
• Patient adherence to preventative treatment and medication
• Patient risk score
• Patient propensity to respond to healthcare interventions
• Future clinically avoidable costs
• Other specifics related to your patient mix and point-points
Custom Technology Capabilities and Solutions
How are you currently communicating and reaching your patients and clinicians to improve behaviour to improve health outcomes? How do you manage your data? Do you have any cloud-based applications? AArete is prepared to help your company stay ahead of global trends related to technology and digitisation to improve care and reduce costs.
We support clients through various technology services, including:
• Custom applications and analytics platforms
• Web & mobile applications
• Chatbots
• Cloud capabilities
• User experience/visual design
• Technology strategy
• Data engineering
• Modern data warehousingHow are you currently communicating and reaching your patients and clinicians to improve behaviour to improve health outcomes? How do you manage your data? Do you have any cloud-based applications? AArete is prepared to help your company stay ahead of global trends related to technology and digitisation to improve care and reduce costs.
We support clients through various technology services, including:
• Custom applications and analytics platforms
• Web & mobile applications
• Chatbots
• Cloud capabilities
• User experience/visual design
• Technology strategy
• Data engineering
• Modern data warehousingHow are you currently communicating and reaching your patients and clinicians to improve behaviour to improve health outcomes? How do you manage your data? Do you have any cloud-based applications? AArete is prepared to help your company stay ahead of global trends related to technology and digitisation to improve care and reduce costs.
We support clients through various technology services, including:
• Custom applications and analytics platforms
• Web & mobile applications
• Chatbots
• Cloud capabilities
• User experience/visual design
• Technology strategy
• Data engineering
• Modern data warehousing
Pharmacy Solutions
AArete understands the difficulty of managing medicines. When left unmanaged, medicines create a financial and operation burden on the system. We support NHS entities with effective formulary solutions and prescribing solutions to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes. AArete leverages data, proven methodologies and clinical knowledge to deploy medicines optimisation management practices, such as polypharmacy reduction and medicines interaction management (“AANDIE” tool).
The AArete Automated Negative Drug Interaction Engine (AANDIE) compares a negative drug interaction database to patient data to identify negative drug interactions that patients may be experiencing. AANDIE provides pharmacists, GPs and other NHS entities the visibility to verify that drugs they are dispensing are safe when combined with drugs another pharmacy has dispensed.
Sample capabilities:
• Medication accuracy
• Medication adherence
• Medication cost
• Prescription monitoring
• Medication interaction review
Digital Process Automation
Does your organisation highly repetitive tasks that are subject to human error, such as data entry? At AArete, we can help you streamline these processes and reduce errors. We conduct bespoke process reviews, offer opportunities for improvement and implement RPA (Robotic Process Automation). We have experience implementing bots across many data types including provider data, prior authorisation and more.
Analytics-as-a-Service (On-prem or Remote)
AArete’s employees have the market intelligence and technical capability to expedite your team’s successes. Often clients describe having “too much data” to leverage for decision-making or a lack resources and capabilities to achieve their goals. We provide turnkey analytics solutions for specific client analytics, reporting and dashboarding needs. We can also augment the client analytics team for ongoing analysis and reporting success.
Quality Programme Reviews and Solutions
AArete evaluates your compliance to government contracts and is committed to improving the quality of care throughout the healthcare system. By providing quality assessment and performance improvement reviews, we help your organisation deploy strategies to improve the quality of care for poor-performing healthcare providers. Leveraging AArete can result in significant quality ranking improvements and additional NHS investment.
Our Health Experts

Maulik Bhagat

Expertise Areas:
Maulik Bhagat
Maulik is based out of AArete’s Chicago office and leads AArete’s Innovation and Advisory services. He is also responsible for driving AArete’s international growth strategy. Overall, Maulik comes with nearly 20 years of experience in Operational and Management Consulting across multiple industries working with Ernst & Young, Protiviti Consulting and Huron Consulting. He has experience leading advising Fortune 1000 clients on driving operational efficiencies and creating enterprise value. He has led large consulting engagements for clients delivering operational transformation, bottom line improvement, digitally enabled process efficiencies and organizational change, through fact-based data intensive analysis combined with domain expertise. Maulik holds a Master of Business Administration degree from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR), a bachelor’s in accounting and Finance from Mumbai University, and is a Certified Information Systems Auditor and a Six Sigma Green Belt. He was recognized by Consulting Magazine’s for their “35 under 35 – Rising Star of the Profession” award and was selected to the list of Top 50 Healthcare Consultants of 2021 by The Consulting Report. He is a published author and quoted industry expert in Managed Healthcare Executive, Chain Drug Review, ThinkAdvisor, American Pharmacists Association and Chain Store Age.

John Carey

Expertise Areas:
John Carey
John is a highly experienced Managing Director responsible for leading AArete’s Technology Solutions group, advising clients on technology strategy, development and implementation with a focus on profitability improvement, cost reduction and increased operational efficiencies. With experience working cross-sector as a CIO / CTO for high profile organizations such as HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Harrods and Barclays, he gained a track record of creating key change capabilities for complex business demands through technology solution delivery. Prior to joining AArete, he founded technology consultancies and spent 10+ years directing his company’s technical management and product development strategies. John is a graduate of Sheffield Hallam University, where he completed Master programmes in Enterprise Systems Management and IT Management and is a member of the IET and IEEE.

Kevin Byrnes

Expertise Areas:
Kevin Byrnes
Kevin specializes in data analytics and mining, business process improvement, strategic sourcing solutions and leading strategic profitability improvement initiatives. His broad range of healthcare experience, including both the Provider and Payer side, makes him an integral member of AArete’s analytics team. Kevin has worked with large managed care organizations (MCOs) and hospitals to deliver cost savings results and operational and strategic business insight. Kevin holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and was recognized as a Consulting Magazine “2019 Rising Stars of the Profession – Consulting’s 35 under the age of 35” award winner.

Paul Ceverha

Expertise Areas:
Paul Ceverha
Paul has an extensive track record of developing new and innovative approaches to complex clinical, IT, operational and market opportunities as a leader of AArete’s healthcare strategy and operations service lines. He has served in various roles as a business developer, senior executive, CTO and industry thought leader. He has extensive experience in and broad knowledge of clinical and business informatics and technology enablers and provides proven and successful approaches to clients in the healthcare provider and payer sectors. His recent focus has been on sustainable reduction of cost-of-care and advising health systems on the enablers required for bearing risk and improving outcomes on populations. Paul has Bachelors and Masters degrees from The University of Texas.

Duane Harrington

Expertise Areas:
Duane Harrington
Duane brings more than 25 years of consulting experience helping organizations with various strategy, performance improvement and operational initiatives. As part of AArete’s Executive Leadership, Duane works closely with our industry and service line leads to drive growth while supporting innovation and solution development. Duane holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from The Ohio State University.

Leslie Lotano-Saba

Expertise Areas:
Leslie Lotano-Saba
Leslie Lotano-Saba has more than 35 years of pharmacy experience, primarily in government programs with payers and PBMs. She is recognized for developing innovative and practical strategies that decrease costs and improve margin without compromising quality. Leslie established her own consulting firm, Saba and Associates, LLC, and has applied her extensive industry knowledge and expertise to assist health plans, PBMs, technology and clinical care organizations address strategic and operational issues, improving their performance.
Leslie’s previous experience includes Chief Operating Officer of Clinical Support Services, a medication therapy management company responsible for operational efficiency improvements and revenue growth; Senior Vice President for Amerigroup (acquired by Anthem), where she led the pharmacy program for one of the nation’s largest Medicaid managed care plans, managing state carve-ins, designing and implementing innovative cost savings solutions; Vice President of Pharmacy for Horizon NJ Health, the largest Medicaid managed care plan in New Jersey where she successfully insourced pharmacy benefits management, designed a Community Pharmacist Diabetes Initiative and a regionally and nationally recognized Asthma disease management program. Leslie also led operational improvement initiatives at NCS Healthcare (long term care), PSCNY (PBM) and Medco mail service pharmacy in New York.
Leslie serves as a member of the AMCP Public Policy committee and a member of the AMCP Medication Therapy Management Advisory Group. Leslie earned a Bachelor’s of Pharmacy degree from Albany College of Pharmacy and a MS in Healthcare Administration from Union College (Clarkson University) and attended the Wharton School Executive Management Program for Pharmacy Leaders. She is also a member of Women Business Leaders, AMCP and the American College of Healthcare Executives.

John Marchisin

Expertise Areas:
John Marchisin
John has over 30+ years of cross–industry consulting and operations improvement experience. He continues to provide profit improvement services to a range of companies including higher education, healthcare providers, healthcare payers, technology, retail, and other. His work includes strategic profitability improvement, revenue cycle improvements, gross margin improvements, process redesign, and technology implementation services. John has a particular focus on organizational change management supporting his clients in developing strategies for advancing their business to meet new business and regulatory challenges. He is a known innovator and driver of change that produces results by communicating to all levels of the organization. John has a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Management Information Systems from Pace University, is a member of HFMA and is a published author in Managed Healthcare Executive, CFO and Financial Executives.

Mark O’Hara

Expertise Areas:
Mark O’Hara
Mark is a Managing Director and co-leader of AArete’s Healthcare Payer Practice. He is responsible for the overall strategic vision and execution of AArete’s solutions for Payer clients. He has extensive expertise leading a variety of engagements including medical and administrative cost reduction, process improvement, network development, M&A and others. Mark has worked with payer clients for over 20 years, providing a wealth of experience to his clients.
Mark holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Cornell University, a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and is a published author in CFO Magazine.

Paul Schuhmacher

Expertise Areas:
Paul Schuhmacher
Prior to joining AArete, Paul began his career at Huron Consulting Group where he worked on corporate disputes and fraud investigations. With nearly 10 years of consulting experience across a variety of industries including extensive experience with healthcare payers, working with several large national payers, regional payers, and integrated health systems. He specializes in using data analytics to drive strategic decisions and operational improvements that result in significant bottom line improvement with minimal disruption to an organization. Paul directed and oversaw five engagements with state Medicaid Health Plans of 20M+ member payer that resulted in over $200M of savings and led an engagement with 4M+ member national Medicaid payer that achieved $25M of annual recurring savings through identification and implementation of unit cost, utilization management, and configuration opportunities. Paul holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business with concentrations in Business Economics & Public Policy and Finance and is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE).

Maria Turner

Expertise Areas:
Maria Turner
Prior to joining AArete, Maria began her career at Arthur Andersen where she provided audit and consulting services to privately-held companies in a variety of industries including the transportation, professional services and non-profit sectors. She subsequently served as the CFO for a provider of global brand management solutions. With nearly twenty years of consulting experience, Maria is a leader in AArete’s Healthcare Payment Intelligence™ practice with a focus on configuration and overpayment analytics, including Healthcare Fraud, Waste and Abuse (FWA) and other payment integrity issues. She works closely with leading insurance payers to design and implement comprehensive solutions that are customized to align with each client’s unique business requirements resulting in the early detection, recovery and prevention of overpayments in healthcare claims. She couples her depth of business knowledge with her expertise in healthcare to create innovative solutions that are tailored to meet the challenges healthcare payers currently face. Maria holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from The University of Iowa, is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and belongs to the Illinois CPA Society. Additionally, Maria serves as President Elect of the University of Iowa Professional Accounting Council, is an Executive Sponsor of AArete’s Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) and is also a member of the Women Business Leaders (WBL) of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation.