Audrey Brown

Florida Association of Health Plans

Brown has advocated on behalf of Medicaid, Medicare and private health plans for nearly a decade as president and CEO of the Florida Association of Health Plans (FAHP). Brown has over the years helped beat back legislation managed care plan providers said would increase health care costs. In 2020, Brown and FAHP lobbied to pass a law that prohibited air ambulance services from “balance billing” patients.

Melanie Brown-Woofter

Florida Behavioral Health Association

Brown-Woofter is the president and CEO of the Florida Behavioral Health Association. She works to increase Medicaid funds for behavioral health. In 2022, Brown-Woofter lobbied to increase state Medicaid funding for community mental health by more than $100 million. She previously worked at AHCA as the Medicaid Managed Care Bureau Chief.

Colleen Burton

Florida Senate

Burton chairs the Senate Fiscal Policy Committee, the first committee of reference for most health care-related bills. That makes Burton the gatekeeper of most substantive health care policy issues the upper chamber will consider over the next two years. Burton also serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee on Health and Human Services, as well as the Banking and Insurance and Fiscal Policy committees.

Christa Calamas

Florida House

Calamas has guided Florida health care policy as a legislative staff member for a little more than 16 years. In that time, she has written new health law on issues ranging from abortion to end-of-life care, and from telehealth to a ban on transgender health care for minors. In addition to working for the legislative branch, Calamas served a seven-month stint as AHCA Secretary and was the assistant general counsel to former Gov. Jeb Bush during his second term as Governor.

Chris Chaney

The Advocacy Group at Cardenas Partners

Chaney catapulted into the Legislative Process after working on Scott’s first campaign for Governor and then on Scott’s transition team. From there, Chaney was named the Legislative Affairs Director at AHCA, which made him the point man on all policy and appropriations. Now his clients include the American Academy of Anesthesiologist Assistants, Centene Corporation, Cleveland Clinic Florida, the FHA and Health Network One (HN1).

Mike Cherniga

Greenberg Traurig

Cherniga is a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig and a member of the firm’s Health Care & FDA Practice. His work spans the health care spectrum on regulatory compliance issues, ranging from the federal Stark Law and similar state physician self-referral prohibitions to HIPAA. He also advises clients on government payor requirements as well as insurance and managed care reimbursement requirements. He’s also an expert in health care transactional law as well as corporate health care regulatory issues.