Brad Rishel, Regional Administrator

Brad Rishel is the Eastern Regional Administrator overseeing North Country’s four clinics in Navajo and Apache Counties.  He draws on his 10 years of clinic administration experience.  In addition, he is project coordinator for Electronic Health Record implementation agency wide, as well as coordination of the team for formalizing North Country’s strategic plan for Information Technology.

Brad Rishel was the Practice Administrator for the Family Healing Center, PC (FHC), for nine years (1997-2007).  He and his physician wife, Hannah Rishel, M.D., owned and operated a family medical clinic in Holbrook, Arizona.  He oversaw the day to day fiscal, personnel, and facility management, with close to a $1 million annual budget.  The FHC was a three to four provider outpatient clinic with a 12-15 member support staff.  The clinic had an average Medicare-Medicaid patient panel of approximately 70% which reflected the relatively low income of the area’s inhabitants.  FHC was in the nation’s first 10% of private practices to adopt electronic health records (Fall 2004).  The Rishels sold their clinic to North Country HealthCare in January of 2007, and joined the ranks of the new owner.

Brad’s other previous employment has focused on two main areas--administration and business management.  As an administrator, he was charged with an educational/religious institute for Native Americans on the Navajo Indian Reservation for seven years.  He was responsible for managing a $150,000 annual budget, facility maintenance and development, staff relations and supervision, and most aspects associated with running an institution.  He worked closely with the national administrative body.  Business management experience includes running his own small farm and commercial greenhouse; general farm management which ran the gamut from turn-of-the-century historical horse farming and museum management to modern agribusiness, and later establishing his own consulting business for economic development.

Brad received a Masters of Arts in Communication in 1988 from Wichita State University.  He was awarded the 2005 “Professional of the Year” by the University of Arizona Rural Health Office.  He strives to promote increased access to local healthcare by serving as the current chairman of the Holbrook Healthcare Steering Committee.  Brad also serves on two local boards for the Holbrook Chamber of Commerce, and the Native American Baha’i Institute near Sanders, Arizona .