Meet the Snow Canyon Clinic Administrative

Snow Canyon Clinic: Administrative Staff

Snow Canyon Clinic Administrative Staff

Rebecca Johnson
President and Chief Executive Officer

Rebecca Johnson, President and CEO, joined Snow Canyon Clinic (SCC) in 2000. Ms. Johnson earned her Bachelor of Science degree in biological sciences, with additional training in chemistry and mathematics, from Southern Utah University. She graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1998. She has prior experience in health care to include technical and management responsibilities at Intermountain Health Care and Myriad Genetics, Inc., to cite a few.

Ms. Johnson began at SCC as a manager directly responsible for certain aspects of health care delivery. Her medical background exposed her directly to patient care, and from this she developed superb communication skills, characterized by tact, diplomacy and flexibility. With the passage of time she very quickly demonstrated a talent for management on a global scale. We became impressed with her fund of knowledge and skills, encompasing all areas of personnel management and health care delivery.

Ms. Johnson has demonstrated exemplary talent in decision making relative to the current complex regulatory environment in medicine. She has demonstrated uncommon skills in strategic planning, marketing, human resource management and contract negotiations. She has handled the daunting task of implementing SCC's "Electronic Medical Records (EMR)." This is our health information system, and it encompases multifaceted interfaces with patient, imaging, and laboratory records, to better serve and protect the confidentiality of our patients. The EMR enables the smooth and seamless access to medical information, and improves the quality of care our physicians are able to deliver.

Rebecca has been a principle motivating force in the improvement of medical care at SCC. Her strong leadership led to her promotion to President and Chief Executive Officer in January, 2008.

Brian Brown
Chief Financial Officer

Brian Brown, CFO, has been with Snow Canyon Clinic (SCC) since July, 2003. Mr. Brown is a "Master" of Accounting, having received his degree (Masters of Accounting) from Southern Utah University the year he joined SCC. Mr. Brown has expertise in Business Law, Corporate Tax, Governmental Accounting, Cost Accounting, Financial Accounting, and Tax Accounting. Brian Brown has brought to Snow Canyon Clinic his skills in financial management and cost accounting. He has excelled in creating performance measures to assist our employees in maximizing the goals of our clinic as well as establishing a leadership structure to provide for long range planning. His talents include close interaction with billing and collections and understanding of the ongoing and constantly changing health care reimbursement and coding changes. His role is vital in our strategic business planning, budgeting and project oversight to continuously improve quality control and enhance patient care. In the past, Mr. Brown has had the responsibility for the management of as many as 30 professional personnel, and during his tenure at SCC has performed beyond the call of duty in the fiscal management of a business with as many as 80 professionals. "You know you have an excellent fiscal officer when he rides his bike to work 25 miles round trip each day, through wind, rain and snow, and does not complain. That is a man who know where the bottom line is." (Quote by Gary L. Jones, M.D., Ph.D.)

Responsibilities include the preparation of financial and income statements, balance sheets, Billing Department management, the process of accounts payable and payroll, monitoring accounts and analyzing productivity, amongst yet other activities.

Skills and licences include Great Plains accounting software, QuickBooks, Power Point, Exel, Outlook, Access, RIA and CCH.

Mary C. Freesh, D.O.
Administrative Vice President

Mary C. Freesh, D.O., is Administrative Vice President at Snow Canyon Clinic (SCC). Drs. Gary L. Jones and Mary C. Freesh were responsible for the founding of SCC in 1998. Dr. Freesh assumed a general role as Director of Patient and Administrative Services in 1998 and subsequently recruited additional administrative personnel whose talents have been vital in the ongoing success of Snow Canyon Clinic.

Dr. Freesh earned her doctorate at the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center, where she also participated in research leading to several publications in peer reviewed journals dealing with epilepsy research. She also has an extensive background in health sciences.

Upon completing postdoctoral training in Denver, she developed a successful family practice in the Salt Lake City area. From this experience and other responsibilities, she acquired the management skills that were so valuable in the creation of SCC.

Gary L. Jones, M.D., Ph.D
Chairman and Chief Operating Officer

Dr. Jones was the first private practice clinical neurologist to practice full time in Southern Utah, arriving in 1991. In 1998 he founded Snow Canyon Clinic (SCC), whose principle mission is to provide for medical expertise and technology not otherwise available in Southern Utah. Under Dr. Jones' direction, SCC brought the "first" PET-CT scanner to Utah. PET (positron emission tomography)-CT (computerized tomography) is a fusion of technology that enables the most advanced cancer diagnostic capability in history. It is also useful in Alzheimer's disease diagnosis and response to treatment, seizure focus identification, and other applications. SCC was also responsible for bringing the first high resolution MRI to Southern Utah, and has "pushed" to be first in many other areas, because the need was simply not being met by major health care organizations. When stroke therapeutics entered it's modern era, with the introduction of "tissue plasminogen activator" (TPA), a clot dissolving drug, Dr. Jones treated more stroke patients with this clot dissolver than any other physician in Utah, for the first year (statistics from Genentech). Thus, Dr. Jones ussured into use TPA for acute stroke in Utah, advancing stroke therapeutics immeasurably.

Dr. Jones studied chemistry as an undergraduate in Arizona and earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Utah. His Ph.D. is in pharmacology (mechanisms of drug action, drug discovery and development, etc.), and he undertook a two year post doctoral fellowship in this field, before attending medical school. Upon completion of medical school he undertook a residency program in neurology at the University of Utah, after which he became Board Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and has remained Board Certified continuously since.

Dr. Jones has eight years of academic experience at the Assistant and Associate Professor level, serving in the Pharmacology, Pathology and Biology Departments at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, prior to returning to Utah. Dr. Jones has contributed significantly to research in epilepsy, stroke, and sickle cell disease. He is currently engaged in the development of an Alzheimer's disease research program. Further, he has worked tirelessly in theoretical efforts to achieve a better understanding of the electronic and energetic nature of natural and synthetic organic molecules, especially as they relate to the study of drug action.

Dr. Jones has published numerous articles in the peer reviewed scientific literature, and has been the invited author of numerous chapters and reviews. He owns several patents. He belongs to numerous professional organizations, and has made frequent contributions. For example, he is a member, attends and contributes to the American Academy of Neurology, the Epilepsy Society of America, the American Stroke Association, the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the American Society for Pharmacognosy, the American Chemical Society, the American Heart Association, and the American College of Chest Physicians.

While Dr. Jones has dedicated his life to clinical neurology since arriving in Southern Utah in 1991, he continues to maintain a research laboratory, at Snow Canyon Clinic. He founded and owns a private small molecule drug discovery company, Hamit-Darwin-Freesh, Inc., on the Snow Canyon Clinic campus. He has also founded and is developing alternative health care delivery models, an example being HealthForceOne, Inc..

In patient care Dr. Jones believes that the "time" spent with your patient is often more valuable, in a therapeutic sense, than just about anything else we, as physicians, can offer. A patient's participation in his or her illness, along with the physicians' efforts, will amplify the efficacy of just about any therapeutic transaction; and patient education (of which Dr. Jones is an avid believer and participant) must play a major role. This means that physicians need to spend more time with their patients. Leisure time might find Dr. Jones restoring and driving Studebakers, or in competitive rifle matches.