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Tricia Ford, an accomplished healthcare leader with more than 25 years of hospice experience covering operations, sales, business development and management, is Care Synergy’s first Vice President of Operations. In support of Care Synergy’s shared services model supporting member not-for-profit hospices, Tricia is responsible for strategic planning, direction and management of patient care-related shared services, group purchasing and group contracting, as well as other initiatives that benefit Affiliate members.

Prior to joining Care Synergy, Tricia worked with a variety of hospice, home health and post-acute providers as a consultant and independent contractor, specializing in supporting aging in place and preventing hospital readmissions.

Tricia previously worked as a Vice President for the fast-growing New Century Hospice, for which she was responsible for hospice operations at six New Century locations in Colorado, Texas and Louisiana. She also helped lead and manage the transition when the company was acquired by another provider. She joined the growing New Century from UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Hospice and Palliative Care, where she served as Chief Operating Officer for eight years. With responsibility for strategic planning and creating an infrastructure to build a national hospice and palliative care organization through acquisition and de novo initiatives, Tricia had responsibility for an 800-employee workforce and revenue and profitability across the division. She also managed Optum’s relationships with two not-for-profits, The Dream Foundation and the National Hospice Foundation, with which Optum worked and to which Optum directed memorial contributions made in the name of its hospice patients.

Earlier in her career, Tricia was Executive Vice President of GeriNet, a leading healthcare organization that specializes in providing post-acute care for frail and vulnerable patients in skilled nursing facilities and home environments, and its Hospice Touch subsidiary. One of the largest hospice providers in Orange County, California, Hospice Touch was one of the first hospice programs in the nation to integrate with managed care organizations and physician medical groups. Tricia assumed her first operational role as Western Regional Vice President for Odyssey Health Care, in which she was responsible for a six-state region with revenues of $57 million and nearly 600 employees.

Tricia began her hospice career as a Hospice Sales Representative for Vitas Healthcare in Dallas, Texas, and subsequently was promoted to Director of Admissions & Sales for start-up programs and then was named Director of Admissions & Sales for Vitas’ long-established anchor program in Dallas.

Throughout her career, Tricia has been actively involved in not-for-profit organizations serving the communities in which she lived and worked. She currently serves on the Executive Leadership Council of Colorado State University, her alma mater. In previous professional postings Tricia represented her employer on the Hospice Advisory Board of the Dream Foundation and the Board of Trustees of the National Hospice Foundation of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

A graduate of Colorado State University, Tricia earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies–Geriatrics from the college of Health and Human Sciences.