Last Fall, we launched a new quarterly employee recognition program called the EPIC Awards to help bring the four tenets that define PCG’s ethos—Entrepreneurial Spirit, Passion, Impact, and Community—to life in a tangible way. Today, we are thrilled to announce that Michelle Clickner, on behalf of a multidisciplinary team of more than 50 PCG employees, has been selected as PCG’s newest EPIC Awards winner in recognition of their Entrepreneurial Spirit and ongoing commitment to delivering solutions that matter to those we serve.

Michelle was nominated as a representative on behalf of the team by manager Jim Waldinger (Boston) for being the “heart and soul” of an extremely complex project that brings together multiple teams to deliver needed services to children with disabilities and their families.

While there are many different ways to embody the entrepreneurial spirit of PCG, in Michelle and her team’s case, it is their ability to think outside the box when addressing a client’s unique and complex challenges that earned this recognition. This is a team that understands how to apply their diverse expertise in unique ways to design and deliver a solution that directly impacts families’ quality of life in real, tangible ways.

Embodying the Entrepreneurial Spirit

Being able to find the right solutions for our clients enables them to then deliver improved outcomes to those they serve in the community -- something we strive for with every client engagement. Achieving this goal, especially for a project as complex as the one Michelle and her team support, takes commitment, hard work, collaboration, creative thinking, and entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneurial spirit is felt at all levels by this multidisciplinary team, which includes:

• Enrollment and Mailroom – processing applications electronically and through mail, ensuring accuracy of eligibility and swiftness of enrollment so families can begin to receive needed services.
• Case Management – providing each enrollee with a dedicated case manager who is assigned to advocate for families and ensure high-quality services can be found and are provided.
• Claims Operations – providing accurate and efficient claims administration, working with providers to explain the program, answering provider questions, and ensuring timely payment.
• Customer Service – answering questions from families, caregivers, and providers, offering a welcoming voice to help solve problems.
• Data and Reporting – enabling efficient transmission of data back and forth with the client, as well as a state finance department for payment to providers and vendors. Detailed daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual report provides state policymakers with insights into the program.
• Project Management – offering professional project managers to organize the program’s day-to-day activities.
• Consulting – leveraging PCG’s management consulting skills to the fullest, providing an effective and efficient implementation of this large, complex project.
• Provider Directory – configuring a tool developed by one of PCG’s international teams – ASSIST – and using this tool to help case managers quickly find providers who are willing to deliver services to members of the fund.

This is not something that is done naturally. This solution doesn’t come in a box that can be simply installed. It takes focused effort and collaboration. It takes PCG’s Can-Do attitude and its entrepreneurial spirit that empowers its team members to find the best solution to complex problems. Quite simply, this team has found a way to improve the operations of a difficult, complex program – in a short period of time they have created a solution that matters.

Integral to this operation is Michelle, the project’s case manager supervisor. When asked about Michelle’s contributions to the project, one of her teammates had this to say:

"Michelle was the first person we hired to be a part of the newly established Case Management team and I cannot imagine where we would be without her…She is a major reason why we have such a well-qualified and comprehensive case management team that provides services to recipients all over the country and even internationally. 

She has refined many of our case management processes while leading a team that is responsible for over seven hundred enrollees and their families. She acts as the point of escalation for these families, attending judiciary hearings, conducting authorization reviews and determinations, as well as being a primary point of contact for the client.  Her efforts are a textbook case of what it means to embody “entrepreneurial spirit” here at PCG."

Please join us in congratulating Michelle and her team for this well-deserved recognition of their entrepreneurial spirit and hard work. It is because of colleagues like this that PCG continues to make an impact in the communities where we live and work.