Newsmaker
Monday, January 4, 1999
Name: Terri CloudAge: 42
Education: University of Phoenix business administration student
Position: Health benefits advisor
Hobbies: Reading
Tripler Medical Center's Terry Cloud is a paper shuffler. She is glad of it and so is everyone around her. Patients benefit by her help
As a health benefits advisor, Cloud is used to filling out tall stacks of paperwork to help the sick get through the maze of benefits requirements in order to get medical care.
More important, she's good at it, and she always remembers that patients are more than just a piece of paper.
For her dedication and service, Cloud has been named the U.S. Army Medical Command's Health Benefits Advisor of the Year for 1998.
Her boss, Col. Robert Johnson, uses "exceptional" to describe her in every aspect of her work.
Cloud, who works in Tripler's Managed Care Division, credits her success to one thing: "I love what I do."
"I like coming to work every day," she said. "I think they'll have to drag me out of here in the end."
On average, Cloud sees about 15 patients a day and helps another 30 on the telephone. Often she works 10 to 12 hours a day.
"My job is to help them figure out who is going to care for them, how they will get the care, where they will get the care and who is going to pay for it," she said.
It's bad enough to be sick; it's worse when patients must decipher complicated benefits rules before they can receive medical help, she said. Then there's always a ton of paperwork.
"Yes, I am a paper shuffler," Cloud said. "If it wasn't for the paperwork, I wouldn't have a job. Somebody's got to do it."
After 11 years on the job - first as a staff sergeant in a similar role and then as a civilian employee in her current position - Cloud knows the paperwork requirements thoroughly.
Her expertise allows her to quickly arrange for medical care, whether it be at Tripler or elsewhere. In a recent emergency, a patient needing heart bypass surgery had little money and limited health coverage. Cloud was able to complete all the necessary paperwork and obtain state medical health insurance for him, all within a day.
"That person is doing fine. And I am very happy for him and his family. That's the part of the job that is very rewarding - and challenging," Cloud said.
Often her rewards come in more tangible forms, such as her personal meeting with the Army's surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Ronald Blanck, when she received her award.
"That was such an honor, to have him give me the award himself. That just made my day," she said.
More often, her rewards come in the form of homemade cookies from grateful patients and their families.
"Boy, do I get cookies," she said. "And it's not doing anything for my figure."
Suzanne Tswei, Star-Bulletin
