Dave Totaro, President and Executive Director
Leadership: Founding Member and Chair Emeritus, Partnership for Medicaid Home-Based Care (PMHC); Board Member and Chair Emeritus, Hospice Action Network (HAN); Chair, Pennsylvania Home Care Foundation; Board Member, National Association for Home Care & Hospice; Former Treasurer and board member, Partnership for Quality Home Health (PQHH)
David Totaro joined BAYADA Home Health Care in June 2009 as chief government affairs officer and spearheaded the development of a nationally recognized legislative and grassroots advocacy program now known as Hearts for Home Care. His team of government affairs, public affairs, and grassroots advocacy professionals advocate daily for home health care clients and caregivers and regularly interact with legislative and regulatory officials at the state and federal levels. Prior to this, Mr. Totaro was chief marketing officer at RehabCare Group, Inc., a national rehabilitation therapy management company headquartered in St. Louis, MO and Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer at Caesars Entertainment, in Las Vegas, NV.
David has received many awards and accolades throughout his career. Most recently, he was honored as a “Titan 100” in Pennsylvania, was on New Jersey Biz’s list of People to Watch in Healthcare, and was presented with the McKnight’s “Agent of Change” Pinnacle Award. Among his many leadership positions, David is a founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Partnership for Medicaid Home-Based Care (PMHC), a Washington, DC based alliance of Medicaid home care providers, managed care companies, national and state home care associations and technology companies.
He holds a BA degree in History from Dickinson College and an MBA in marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Lee Dobson, Deputy Executive Director, Government Relations & Advocacy Engagement
Leadership: Member, Partnership for Medicaid Home-based Care (PMHC) Private Duty Nursing Subcommittee; Board member, NC Coalition on Aging; Co-chair, NC Serious Illness Coalition Subcommittee on Public Policy and Legislative Affairs; Member, NC All Ages, All Stages, and Co-chair Service Option Work-group
Lee Dobson, MPA, CPHQ, is a healthcare executive with over 30 years of experience in home health and hospice government affairs, public policy, and grassroots advocacy. She works with state and national associations, legislators, state and federal government agencies, state licensure agencies, and Medicare,
Medicaid to help seniors, children and adults living with disabilities and medical complexities get the home care and hospice services they need. She also works to preserve the jobs of dedicated nurses, therapists, habilitation technicians, and home health aides who care for them. As part of a team who understands the importance of advocating for and educating on the value of home care and hospice, Dobson works to improve access to high-quality care at home.
In 1994, Lee started her healthcare careers by spending five years at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina (Palmetto Government Benefits Administrators the fiscal intermediary for Medicare) in Columbia, South Carolina; five years as the director of regulatory affairs with the Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina (AHHC); five years with the Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence as the
program director for home health and long term care quality initiatives; and 15 years with BAYADA Home Health Care as the Division Director of Government Affairs. She received the Leslie Carswell Leadership Award from the Association for Home & Hospice Care of NC in 2018.
Lee has a master’s degree in public administration with a focus on health administration from Troy State University, and received an international accreditation as a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ).
Louise Lindenmeier, Deputy Executive Director, Government Relations & Advocacy Engagement
Leadership: Board of Directors Chairperson, NJ Home Care and Hospice Association; NJ Home Care and Hospice Association committee member
Louise Lindenmeier, RN, BSN, is a passionate advocate for medically-fragile children, adults, and seniors and the compassionate health care professionals who enable them to remain in the comfort and safety of home. Since 2003, Ms. Lindenmeier has played an instrumental role in educating legislators, regulators, and professional associations about the importance of home health care and how it can improve the quality of life for thousands of people while reducing costs for an over-burdened health care system.
When advocating for home health care, Ms. Lindenmeier draws on her expertise and experience as a nurse for many years. To her advocacy work, she brings a wealth of information she gained while working in home care and hospitals. She has an in-depth understanding of the complexities of government-funded health plans and the challenges that go along with them.
Ms. Lindenmeier earned an associate’s degree in nursing from Pasadena City College in Pasadena, CA and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from California State University, Dominguez Hills, CA. She also has coursework towards a master’s degree in health care administration from the University of La Verne in La Verne, CA.
Laura Ness, Deputy Executive Director – Administration, Advocacy & Political Engagement
Leadership: President-Elect, Pennsylvania Homecare Association; PACs and Politics & Grassroots Task Force, Women in Government Relations; Member, the Forum of Executive Women
Laura Ness has over a decade of experience in home care advocacy and is a tireless advocate for medically-fragile children, adults, and seniors—and the caregivers that keep them at home. Laura started as an associate in BAYADA Home Health Care’s Government Affairs Office in 2011 and playing a central role in the office’s expansion, including opening new markets, expanding the team’s role in business operations, and starting Hearts for Home Care.
Laura has a proven track record in direct legislative lobbying for home health on the national and state levels. Her advocacy has helped secure multiple branches of funding in state budgets nationwide, as well as numerous pieces of legislation on issues impacting home care across more than ten states. City & State listed her as a “40 Under 40” in Pennsylvania, and The Advocacy Association listed her as a “Top 21
in 2021.”
Laura is very involved with the greater Philadelphia community, serving on the Walnut Club’s Board of Directors and as an enthusiastic member of the Philadelphia Liberty Sailing Club.
Melissa Allman, Area Director, Government Relations & Advocacy Engagement
Leadership: Board Member, South Carolina Home Care and Hospice Association (SCHCHA); Chair, SC Private Duty Nursing Coalition; Florida Private Duty Nursing Coalition; Chair, Home Care Association of America – South Carolina Chapter; Winthrop University Health Care Management Advisory Board
Melissa Allman has more than 25 years of experience working in home health care. Prior to joining Hearts for Home Care, Melissa was the Division Director overseeing all of BAYADA’s South Carolina offices. In her role in operations, she supported all office directors to ensure that South Carolina clients received the best possible care. During this time, Melissa began to learn of the challenges of recruiting and retaining nurses across the state, largely due to low state Medicaid reimbursement rates for home health care services. As she continued to hear the access to care challenges that clients and parents faced as a result of this shortage, she became inspired to do more.
Melissa transitioned to advocacy to work more closely with South Carolina lawmakers to educate, support, and provide guidance on the need for reimbursement rate increases, the recruitment and retention issues that stem from chronic underfunding, and the necessity of such increases to support access to home health care by medically-complex South Carolinians. In addition to meeting with lawmakers, Melissa also meets regularly with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to also educate our regulatory leadership regarding the issues families and providers face due to the low reimbursement rate.
Rob Lattin, Area Director, Government Relations & Advocacy Engagement
Leadership: Chair, Delaware Association for Home & Community Care Legislative Committee; Chair, Missouri Alliance for Home Care Private Duty Nursing Task Force
Born with a passion for helping people and standing up for what’s right, Rob is incredibly proud to be part of the Hearts for Home Care team. Rob Lattin has more than 15 years of experience in government affairs and advocacy. Before joining Hearts for Home Care, Rob worked in Washington D.C., including as a policy advisor and the deputy communications director for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, and as the Associate Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League’s mid-Atlantic region.
During his tenure at Hearts for Home Care, Rob has been an advocacy powerhouse—helping pave the way for increased legislative awareness of the home care industry and the challenges providers, caregivers, and clients face in delivering and accessing quality, reliable home care services. His institutional knowledge and lobbying prowess have helped to increase home care funding for both personal care and home nursing programs across multiple mid-Atlantic and Midwest states. Rob received his graduate degree from the City College of New York and his undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona.
Maggie DiPasquale, Associate Director, Federal Government Affairs
Leadership: Member, Regulatory and Policy Committee and Legislative Committee of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO); Member, Advisory Council of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC); Member, Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (PQHH) Home Team
Maggie DiPasquale has aspired to be in the advocacy space since childhood, and is proud to be an integral member of the Hearts for Home Care team. She first joined BAYADA Home Health Care in March of 2018 as part of the Mid-Atlantic advocacy team, where she focused on state issues in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. As Hearts for Home Care began to grow, develop, and have a more vocal and visible role in Washington, D.C., Maggie joined the federal affairs team as senior manager in April 2022, where she led BAYADA Home Health Care’s response to the annual CMS updates for home health, hospice and Medicaid.
Maggie continues to lead Hearts for Home Care’s federal advocacy efforts, focusing on increasing congressional and regulatory awareness of Medicare- and Medicaid-based home health care services and the development of public policies favorable to the home health care industry and its clients and caregivers. Her efforts have helped to prevent significant cuts to federal home health funding that would have destabilized the home health care industry.
She is valued in D.C. as a public policy expert in the home health care space. Maggie obtained both her undergraduate degree in political science and her master’s degree in public administration from West Chester University.
Alisa Mairone, Director, Public & Government Affairs
Leadership: Member, Public Affairs Council Advocacy Conference Advisory Council; Member: MENSA International
Alisa Mairone is passionate about the intersection of advocacy and communications. She began the home health care industry’s first-of-its-kind public affairs program in 2018 and has successfully grown the program every consecutive year. Her primary duties include developing and executing Hearts for Home Care’s external advocacy communications strategy, positioning home care as the patient- preferred and cost-effective alternative to nursing home care, and positioning Hearts for Home Care staff, ambassadors, and advocates as thought leaders on home health care issues.
Alisa has a proven track record of developing and executing communications strategies on behalf of a large organization and industry as a whole. She regularly manages multiple public affairs campaigns across various markets and practice lines, and specifically excels in storytelling, narrative-building, and media relations. Her specialty is uncovering clients’ and caregivers’ stories, tying them to the home health care industry’s public policy goals, and funneling those stories outwards.
Alisa received her bachelor’s degree in political science and communications from Northeastern University in 2011 and earned her Certificate in Public Affairs Management from the Public Affairs Council (PAC) in 2023.
Mike Sokoloski, Director, Grassroots Advocacy
Leadership: Home Care Member, Pennsylvania Long Term Care Council; Member, Lackawanna County Area Agency on Aging Advisory Board
Mike has been in the home care field since 2011, when he joined BAYADA Home Health Care as a community liaison for two service offices in northeast Pennsylvania. He was immediately interested in advocacy and became a Hearts for Home Care Ambassador. Throughout his ambassadorship, Mike went well beyond his call of duty and met with more than 100 legislators and educate them on the value of home care. His passion for advocacy resulted in him earning the title of Hearts for Home Care Pennsylvania Ambassador of the Year four years in a row and National Ambassador of the Year – twice!
Eager to translate his passion for advocacy to all home care recipients, families, and caregivers, Mike joined Hearts for Home Care as a grassroots advocacy manager. This program, which Mike has led for the past five years, is widely acclaimed as the leading grassroots advocacy platform in the home health care industry. The number of Hearts for Home Care advocates has doubled in size since he began leading Hearts for Home Care’s grassroots advocacy program.
Mike is passionate about engaging the wider home care community in sharing their voices through legislative advocacy. He values one-on-one connection and continued education for all advocates, so he can meet each individual “where they are” in their unique and personal advocacy journey. Mike graduated from Penn State University in 1996 and earned his Certificate in PAC & Grassroots Management from the Public Affairs Council (PAC) in 2023.
Marissa Fogal, Senior Manager, Public & Government Affairs
Leadership: Board Member, South Carolina Home Care and Hospice Association (SCHCHA); Chair, SC Private Duty Nursing Coalition; Florida Private Duty Nursing Coalition; Chair, Home Care Association of America – South Carolina Chapter; Winthrop University Health Care Management Advisory Board
Marissa is passionate about communicating an effective advocacy message that resonates with advocates, legislators, and the media to ensure home care issues are being spoken for and prioritized. After working for multiple political campaigns in Pennsylvania, Marissa decided to enter the advocacy space in 2019 to be a voice for the many without one. Marissa began her career in home care advocacy by supporting Hearts for Home Care in the northeast region, monitoring policy and advocacy initiatives in New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
As BAYADA’s advocacy arm continued to grow, so did the need for increased media and online awareness. Marissa transitioned to H4HC’s public affairs team in 2020 to help spearhead efforts to broaden public and legislative awareness of home care issues through earned media and social media efforts. She has grown the Hearts for Home Care’s social media presence exponentially and continues to find new ways to expand our digital footprint and communicate with our legislative, public, and online audiences.
Marissa has successfully managed both federal and state-focused media campaigns that capitalize on storytelling and issue-based advocacy to help move the needle on policy changes. Marissa understands the value that personal experiences have on creating a compelling story and uses these individual narratives to cultivate meaningful relationships with advocates, legislators, and the media both online and on the ground. Marissa graduated from West Chester University with a dual degree in Political Science and Spanish in 2018.
Shelby Myers, Senior Manager, Government Relations & Advocacy Engagement
Leadership: HCAOA NJ Chapter Legislative committee; HCHANJ Legislative Committee, Nominating Committee, and PDN and PCA Workgroups.
Shelby Myers has worked for Hearts for Home Care since 2020, assisting in securing increases for both the Private Duty Nurses and the Personal Care Assistant program in the Northeast region, covering New Jersey and New England. These increases have translated to millions of dollars for home care funding, better caregiver recruitment and retention, and increased access-to-care for home care beneficiaries. Prior to H4HC, Shelby worked for BAYADA’s Sunflower division for three years as a family advocate, where her passion to help families and clients included enlisting the support of legislators to help make a difference in clients’ lives.
This passion led to her being named NJ H4HC ambassador of the year, as well as H4HC National Ambassador of the Year. In 2023, Shelby led the formation of the NJ Legislature Home Care Caucus, a coalition of industry providers, organizations and associations who share in the same goals and challenges of home care from reimbursement needs, recruitment and retention of caregivers, and most importantly—for clients to receive the care they require to remain safely in the home.
She is a passionate champion of homecare and all whom are “differently abled”, which led to her formerly being named Chair of the NJ Epilepsy Task Force and NJ Epilepsy Advocate of the Year. Her resolve is to ensure that home care recipients are seen, heard, and understood. Shelby graduated a BA in Public Service and Administration from Villanova University and is currently a Master of Public Health candidate at Brown University.
Cai Yoke, Senior Manager, Government Relations & Advocacy Engagement
Cai Yoke is passionate about work that addresses health inequities and allows all individuals and families to access the critical care services they need and deserve. They have pursued this passion while working at the intersection of government relations, grassroots advocacy, and communications.
Cai began their career in healthcare policy in 2018 and has supported various state lobbying efforts along the east coast—particularly in the southeast states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In addition to a robust direct lobbying portfolio, Cai is also responsible for developing grassroots advocacy initiatives, campaigns, and education programs to engage home care advocates across the country. They believe that every individual is responsible for being a voice for those who struggle to have one.
Cai graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in Women’s & Gender Studies with a concentration in health and bioethics, and continues to pursue various professional projects to increase access to services that seniors, medically fragile children, and adults living with disabilities rely on to remain independent and a part of their communities.
