About Mary

Mary Hardenbergh, CPMSM, President and Founder of The Hardenbergh Group and Hardenbergh Interim Staffing Group, has enjoyed contributing to the medical staff and credentialing services industry since 1986. Mary was a Corporate Director of Medical Affairs when she successfully established one of the first centralized credentialing organizations and single medical staff structures in the country for a major multi-entity health system in 1988. This led to national attention and the development of a sought-after healthcare consulting business. Mary discovered a need in the staffing field while consulting in hospital medical staff departments that could not be overlooked. The demand for highly-skilled temporary medical staff professionals (MSP) around the country was evident. She created a team of many of the best certified MSPs around the country to travel on-site to health systems, CVOs, credentialing departments, insurance plans, and other healthcare entities to step in and provide their expertise seamlessly, efficiently, and needing no training. Many of the original MSP team is still lending their expertise to Hardenbergh 20+ years later, in addition to the hundreds more that have joined the Hardenbergh pool of phenomenal medical services professionals.

Hardenbergh continues to be the leader in the staffing industry for medical staff services and credentialing with the help of these “best of the best” MSPs and a top-notch corporate team continuing the personalized-service approach with both contractors and clients, which has allowed Mary to change business gears and become active in other community and national projects.

About Bob

Bob Wiemer, CEO of The Hardenbergh Group, has more than 20 years of healthcare experience and is responsible for setting our vision and strategy, assuring the accomplishment of business objectives, securing resources for growth, and working with the team to support our vision on behalf of our clients.

Prior to joining The Hardenbergh Group, Bob served as Vice President for eight years at Quorum Health Resources, a former wholly owned subsidiary of Community Health Systems (NASDAQ: CYH). At Quorum, he led the strategy, product development, and operations of a division focused on informing and advising hospital CEOs, CFOs, trustees, physician leaders, and other healthcare professionals about the evolving healthcare landscape, legislative changes, and the latest operating best practices. Prior to Quorum, Bob served as a member of the leadership team at HealthStream, Inc. (NASDAQ: HSTM) for nearly ten years. At HealthStream, as Vice President of Operations, he was responsible for customer service, technical operations support, account management, training, and implementation for the company’s SaaS solutions. Bob got his healthcare start in mergers and acquisitions at PhyCor, the former industry-leading physician practice management company.

Bob earned his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Civil Engineering from Vanderbilt University and his Masters of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin.

About Judy

The Hardenbergh Group is centered on building relationships and establishing a foundation of trust with our clients and workforce.  Judy is a Medical Services Professional (MSP) with over 25 years of experience.  She has worked with hospital administrators, medical staff leaders, and MSPs in hospitals, health systems, CVOs, health plans, medical groups, and networks across the United States.  Her expertise in medical staff services, credentialing, and provider enrollment gives her deep understanding and insight to help support our clients’ needs and exceed their expectations. Her focus is on successfully placing the right MSP, or MSP team, on each project.

Prior to joining The Hardenbergh Group in 2008, Judy worked as an Independent MSP contractor for nearly nine years, completing a wide variety of assignments throughout the United States, which provided invaluable experience that she can share with our clients and contractors. While in the field, Judy worked on developing centralized credentialing operations for major health systems, restructuring medical staff services departments, promoting process improvement and credentialing initiatives, and helping clients obtain their goal of creating effective strategies to ensure compliance with regulatory mandates. Her experience as a MSP has also afforded her opportunities to help educate, train, coach, and mentor other MSPs.

Judy earned her Bachelor of Science Degree with a concentration in Organization Administration, her Master’s in Administration-Leadership, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Project Management from Central Michigan University. 

About Donna

Donna oversees Hardenbergh's day-to-day business operations and is primarily responsible for attracting, retaining, and working with our Medical Services Professionals and supporting our client needs.  She joined the firm in 2008 to help with internal processes and business initiatives supporting the firm's business growth.  Since that time, Donna has been involved in or worked directly in every functional area of our business.  She values and finds the people side of her role the most enjoyable and enriching.  Donna brings more than 20 years of project, training and workforce management experience within both small and Fortune 500 organizations. Donna holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Business Administration.

In her spare time, Donna most enjoys spending time with her friends and family and it is always a bonus when that can be coupled with doing something fun and exciting while checking off the places on her travel bucket list. 

About Bennie

Bennie has worked with Hardenbergh since 2011.  She supports our clients and consultants in numerous ways.   Bennie also supports the firm's engagement with approximately 60 NAMSS-affiliated conferences.  Bennie believes you differentiate yourself as a business in small ways, too.  Bennie ensures each interaction our consultants and clients have with Hardenbergh is positive.  She never misses an opportunity to acknowledge a colleague's birthday, milestone or special event.

Bennie majored in accounting at Sam Houston University and, after a successful career in the Detroit Public School System, joined Hardenbergh.  Bennie is very active with her church and cheers for her Detroit Tigers baseball team.  Bennie is very proud of her 4 children and 5 grandchildren.  Bennie is an avid traveler and recently visited Poland, Italy and Ireland.

About Lynn

Lynn’s background in healthcare Human Resources includes recruitment and employee relations and has led her to be one of the primary placement coordinators for Hardenbergh. Lynn is drawn to the Human Resources side of the business because she can be the concierge-type who welcomes newly onboarded contractors and is able to follow their progress from the point of interviewing through the client onboarding process. Lynn especially values building relationships and helping others, as demonstrated through her volunteer efforts with select charitable organizations. Time with family is priority when Lynn is outside of work. She enjoys traveling and indulging in her passion - interior design. Lynn is originally from the St. Louis, Missouri area.

About Gretchen

Gretchen’s focus at The Hardenbergh Group is to ensure a smooth and timely internal onboarding process for our consultants.  She is a team player, assisting the back office in whatever the daily needs may be.  Gretchen joined The Hardenbergh Group in June 2015, previously having put her Bachelor’s degree to use working as a paralegal in the financial industry.  During her time away from the office, she enjoys reading, traveling and spending time with family and friends.

About Betsy

About Kathy

About Barbara

Barb Warstler joined The Hardenbergh Group in 2019 as the Associate Vice President, Client Relations.  She brings 20 years of credentialing, medical education, physician relations and physician recruitment experience to her role working with hospital administrators, medical staff leaders, and Medical Services Professionals (MSPs) in hospitals, health systems, CVOs, health plans, medical groups, and networks across the United States.  Barb leverages her vast professional experience to identify and place experienced, qualified MSPs to help clients fill temporary vacancies, supplement existing staff during peak workloads, assess and improve operational efficiency, prepare for upcoming regulatory surveys and audits, pursue National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) accreditation and certification, and more.

Prior to joining The Hardenbergh Group, Barb was the Director of Medical Staff Services, Credentialing and Provider Enrollment for the University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland, Ohio.  At UH, she led the centralization of UH’s disparate medical staff offices, the transition to a paperless, system-wide reappointment process, the integration of six new hospital medical staffs into the system, and the integration of the Provider Enrollment and Medical Staff Services and Credentialing Departments into a single department which earned perfect scores on its NCQA Central Verification Organization (CVO) survey as well as the Morrisey Innovation and Quest for Quality Awards.  In addition, she developed and implemented comprehensive physician, Medical Staff leader, Chief Medical Officer, and Department Chair on-boarding and orientation programs.

Barb maintains her Certified Professional Medical Services Management (CPMSM) and Certified Provider Credentialing Specialist (CPCS) certifications, is a certified Fellow in the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment, is certified in Lean-Six Sigma, and, in 2018, received the Credentialing Resource Center Collaboration Award.

Justin

Justin joined The Hardenbergh Group in September 2019 as Director of Business Development. He is focused on not only growing Hardenbergh’s business but also developing and maintaining strong client relationships. Justin has spent most of his career in healthcare. Prior to joining Hardenbergh, he served as a Regional Director for nine years at a national staffing and recruiting firm, where he led business development while managing a team of account executives, recruiters, and administrators.

Justin prides himself on being honest, passionate, and personable. He enjoys helping people and organizations achieve their goals while building long-lasting relationships in the process. Justin earned his Bachelor of Marketing from Saint Vincent College, where he played Division III football. He now enjoys his free time with his wife Alexandra and their two young boys in Nashville, TN.

Kristina

Kristina joined The Hardenbergh Group as Bookkeeper in September 2019, after moving from Las Vegas, NV to Michigan.  Kristina is responsible for the company’s financial and accounting operations.  She has over 15 years of accounting experience and is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Finance. During her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her kids and family while exploring her new city.

About Lisa

Lisa Velasco joined The Hardenbergh Group in 2020 as Director of Professional Services. She brings nearly 30 years of experience with hospitals and managed care organizations, accreditation and regulatory standards, healthcare law, credentialing and privileging, start-up operations, mergers and acquisitions, physician relations, recruitment, and practitioner wellness.  In addition, she has been both a Hardenbergh client and worked with Hardenbergh as an Independent Contractor.

Prior to joining Hardenbergh, Lisa served as the System Director of Physician Services at NCH Healthcare System where she successfully developed and implemented the professional practice evaluation process as well as an online credentialing and privileging process, while also maintaining compliance for regulatory agencies and accrediting bodies for the NCH Healthcare System Medical Staff Office, NCHMD, Inc. CVO, and Southwest Florida Physician’s Association. Lisa received the Quality Award in 2018 for reducing the turn-around time for processing applications and improving efficiencies and was recognized for best practice by The Joint Commission in 2019 for her online survey process.

Before NCH, Lisa served as the Corporate Credentialing Project Manager for Baptist Health South Florida, the Manager of Medical Staff Services and Graduate Medical Education for West Kendall Baptist Hospital, and the Director of the Corporate Credentialing Office for Jackson Health System.

Lisa maintains her Certified Professional Medical Staff Services Management (CPMSM) and Certified Provider Credentialing Specialist (CPCS) status. She completed the NAMSS Leadership Certificate Program in 2018, has served on the NAMSS Certification Commission and Ethics Committee, and has served in leadership roles on the local, state, and national level. Lisa is also a licensed physical therapist assistant and a certified health coach