Keith Hearle, MBA, Founder and President, Verité Healthcare Consulting, LLC. Prior to establishing Verité, Keith led the Hospitals and Health Systems practice for The Lewin Group, Inc., served as CFO of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (Public Health Division), and as a Manager at KPMG Peat Marwick. In 1989, he developed for Catholic Health Association (CHAUSA) the first accounting framework for hospital community benefit and co-authored the CHAUSA Social Accountability Budget. He also authored the accounting chapters (and worksheets and other materials in editions of the CHAUSA Guide to Planning and Reporting Community Benefit).
He developed a framework for determining "What Counts as Community Benefit," adopted by CHAUSA in 2007. In 2008, IRS officials asked him to draft major sections of the Instructions to IRS Form 990, Schedule H. He subsequently worked with IRS staff on refinements to Schedule H Instructions and provided input regarding 501(r) regulations that apply to 501(c)(3) hospitals.
He has worked with numerous healthcare organizations to enhance their community benefit reporting, assess how their community benefit programs are managed and governed, develop compliant and effective financial assistance policies, conduct well-informed CHNAs, and develop evidence-based Implementation Strategies.
For four years, he has provided strategic counsel to Undue Medical Debt, a charitable organization that acquires and cancels medical debt for low-income people. He also currently serves as an expert for the New York State Office of Attorney General, helping to develop a Best Practices Agreement for Financial Assistance and Billing and Collections Policies and to support the OAG's efforts to enhance hospital compliance with changes to the state's charity care laws.
He also has served as an expert on various Medicaid reimbursement matters - for hospitals and for Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).
He is a frequent presenter on a variety of community benefit-related topics. Until December 2018 he was Board President of Neighborhood Health, an FQHC that serves a medically underserved population in Alexandria City and Fairfax and Arlington counties, Virginia. He recently joined the board of Bay Community Health, an FQHC that serves populations in Anne Arudel County, Maryland.