Staff Spotlight: Leigh Swope-Johnson

Name: Leigh Swope-Johnson

Role: Administrative Operations Supervisor; Billing Manager

Joined NWWC: July 2008

Personal Life: Leigh lives with her husband (pictured with Leigh) and has 3 children. Her daughter is a high school sophomore, her son is studying music at Edmonds Community College and will transfer to UW in the Fall, and her step-daughter is studying communications at Grand Canyon University in Arizona. She also has several furry family members: 3 schnauzers and a boxer/lab/retriever mix. Leigh has been working her way up the pacific coast; she grew up in California, moved to Oregon in grade school, and moved to Washington with her first job.

Life Before NWWC: Leigh was a line assignment operator with GTE for 6 years and worked for Compass Health for 13 years. At Compass Health, she started at the front desk and was promoted to the office manager of 3 separate sites.

A Day in Her Job: Leigh manages billing for all NWWC services and oversees operations related to insurance and self-pay requirements for bariatric surgery preparation. Her days are filled with emails and phone calls with patients as well as insurance representatives. She handles billing inquiries, billing reconciliation, surgery scheduling, advocating for patients’ insurance benefits, and contract negotiation with payer organizations. The insurance and patient care coordinators report to her so she fills in when there’s a need and meets with her team regularly.

What Else to Know about Leigh:

• Leigh has an obsession with schnauzers. Neishah, a 6-month-old schnauzer, was her first rescue dog before she had children. “Neishah was my everything, my first kid.” She loves their personalities and can’t turn down an opportunity to rescue one. She might be willing to show you a picture of one of her current loves: Snazzy, Pepper, or Sherlock.
• Leigh channels her love for cooking into an opportunity to support the community. She donates self-catered 4-course-dinners as prizes for non-profit organization fundraisers. At home, she preps meals on the weekend for the whole week. “It’s family time. My kids love to cook. My husband loves to try.” 😉
• Leigh was a patient at NWWC before she became an employee. She had a gastric band placed in 2007 with Dr. Montgomery. She lost 150 pounds during her first year and was recruited to join the team as the front office supervisor. In this role, she discovered that NWWC was outsourcing billing. She offered to bring it in-house and has been our billing guru ever since.
• Leigh is thinking about her fast-approaching empty nest years. “My life is my kids. We’re thinking about what we want to do when our life doesn’t revolve around our kids.” She and her husband would like to do some traveling. Will there be room for schnauzers on those trips…?