I began working for Bluegrass Care Navigators in 2012 working in DME as a Pharmacy Delivery Driver. I was drawn to Bluegrass Care Navigators as I had numerous family members who had been taken care of by BCN and knew that I wanted to be able to provide the same compassionate care that my family was shown. For 3 years, I worked directly with patients, delivering equipment and medication to their homes as well as the inpatient units. Every day, I met patients and families during one of the most vulnerable times in their lives and knew that I was making a difference and helping them with every interaction. I knew immediately that Bluegrass Care Navigators is where I wanted to build my future. These 3 years were some of the most rewarding years of my life and I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.

After 3 years in DME, I wanted to do more and began looking for opportunities in administration. In making this shift, I would be able to learn another facet of BCN and be able to focus on helping and supporting those who are directly involved in patient care – all the wonderful, compassionate, hard-working clinicians and team members who have been called to take care of our patients. A position became available as a Receptionist in our Lexington Clinical Office. This role helped me learn the clinical side as well as still be directly connected to the patients who would call the office when they needed anything. I also learned the administrative side, meeting many Senior Leaders and learning HOW we can do what we do. I spent 1 year in this role, greeting everyone who came through the doors with a smile and making connections and memories that will last a lifetime (one of the most notable was watching people pull on doors that say “push” every single day 😊).

After a year of learning this side of the organization, I still wanted to learn and do more. One of the most valuable lessons I learned about BCN was that they truly value their team members and care about hiring internally (which cannot be said of many places). This was important to me because it meant BCN cared to invest in their team and wanted to see their own team succeed. This helped drive my decision to look at job postings again, and that is when I noticed a new position (Risk Management Assistant) was posted. This role would be working directly with 3 Senior Leaders and was a new position altogether which meant that it would be a lot of unknown challenges. As a creature of routine this was unsettling, and I thought long and hard about whether I would be a good fit in that role. After talking it over with my manager at the time, I decided to apply, if only to get the experience and let it be known that I wanted to continue my career with BCN. After the interview process, I was called and offered the position. I was excited and nervous to begin this journey. When it came time to begin my new role, I remember feeling excitement for the future but also feelings of sadness knowing that I was not going to be working with or seeing people that had become my work family for the last year – but I also knew they were (at the time) right down the road.

In March of 2017, I began this new role as a senior administrative assistant that would continue to push me personally and professionally for the next 5 years. It was very overwhelming at first learning a new side to the organization and learning all inner workings and learning the WHY behind everything that we do. It would be in this role that everything came full circle and helped me to understand BCN, learning how ideas and “dreams” became reality and everything involved to get to where we are now. Working alongside some of the brightest and most compassionate people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. It would be through this position that I worked directly with three departments – Compliance/Quality, Finance, and Human Resources – with the goal being to learn each department and figure out where I wanted to solidify my career path. Over the last 5 years, I have learned and helped facilitate many changes in systems, processes, and guiding team members through the ever-changing “normal”. Not only did I learn about the organization, I also learned about myself and am forever thankful for every manager that I have worked with over the last (almost) 10 years and who took a chance on me – teaching me and helping me along the way and allowed me to become who I am today. In April, an opportunity arose that I could not pass up and deciding to continue my career in Finance and accepted a position as Senior Payroll Specialist. 

As I work to prepare for transition into my new role, I am reminded of my journey with Bluegrass Care Navigators and am so thankful for all the people I’ve met, experiences I’ve had, and the memories that live with me forever. I couldn’t ask for a better team and am excited for my future. The last 10 years with Bluegrass Care Navigators have given me purpose and a sense of accomplishment, as well as a continuous goal to strive to be the best I can so that we can continue to do the work that we do day in and day out, providing exceptional care to the patients and families of our community.