Trio joins staff at SilverSummit Healthplan

Garrett Leaf, Tanya Phares, and Tina Alicea-Drago have joined SilverSummit Healthplan, a new healthcare services company now serving Nevada.

Leaf was named president and CEO of SilverSummit Healthplan.

Leaf previously worked for SilverSummit’s parent company, Centene, in 2014 as senior vice president of Finance for the company’s California health plan. He also served as vice president of Enterprise Operations at Delta Dental of California, where he was the lead executive responsible for the administration of the California Dental Medicaid (Denti-Cal) Program and later led nationwide claims processing for Delta Dental.

Leaf earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from California State University, Chico.

Phares was named chief medical director for SilverSummit Healthplan and will also serve as clinical advisor and educator of the medical management team.

She most recently served as medical director for Renown Health and as medical director for the Boheme Travel Medicine Clinic, a private clinic specializing in travel medicine consultation and immunization organization in Reno.

Phares earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from California State University, Long Beach, and her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) from the Western University of Health Science at the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific in Pomona, Calif.

Alicea-Drago was named vice president of operations.

She previously served as the CEO of FirstMed, a Las Vegas Federally Qualified Health Center. She also was the founder and CEO of First Person Care Clinics, Nevada’s first FQHC-LAL, which has three locations in downtown Las Vegas and offers primary care, dental care, as well as a school-based clinic at Valley High School. She also was the president of International Aircraft Support Group, Inc., a defense department licensed contractor. She had sold this business to start Think Big Biz, a consulting firm specializing in the design and implementation of strategic business models through management efficiency, technology, revenue cycle management, and marketing.

Alicea-Drago earned an MBA, specializing in both the management and operations and the advertising and marketing emphases from Keller Graduate School of Management in Chicago and earned her bachelor of arts degree with a major in English and minors in business and political science from Marquette University in Milwaukee.