Jeff Byars

Jeff Byars is an award-winning Board-Certified Patient Advocate who provides private advocacy services to individuals and families navigating complex healthcare, insurance, and financial challenges. His work is grounded in a full-spectrum understanding of the healthcare system, informed by decades of frontline care, payer-side experience, and health system operations. Jeff has spent his entire professional career in healthcare. He is a Nationally Registered EMT with more than 33 years of experience delivering patient care in both nonprofit and for-profit environments. He holds an accounting degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and spent 14 years with Alabama’s largest health insurer conducting reimbursement audits for commercial and governmental plans. He later worked within Alabama’s largest hospital system, focused on improving clinical trial reimbursement processes. This combination gives him uncommon insight into payer policy, hospital finance, and operational decision-making. Jeff is also a cancer survivor and long-term caregiver advocate. When his daughter was diagnosed with a tumor at seven months old, her care journey included misdiagnosis, multiple surgeries, chemotherapy, proton radiation, a stem cell transplant, extensive transfusions, and a temporary relocation more than 900 miles from home. These lived experiences shape his advocacy approach and deepen his understanding of how system failures affect patients and families. Jeff holds a healthcare-focused Lean Six Sigma Green Belt and has broad experience in healthcare operations, value-based care, clinical trials, departmental costing, auditing, and program administration. He is well-versed in public health policy and is known for his ability to bridge gaps between patients, providers, administrators, and payers. His personal advocacy portfolio includes management of more than $5 million in individual patient charges across multiple states, providing a practical lens for identifying systemic inefficiencies and improving outcomes for both patients and care teams.

BS in Accounting from UAB. I am a Nationally Registered Emergency Medical Technician. I am a Board-Certified Patient Advocate. I also hold a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt with a concentration in healthcare.