Walt Culbertson is CEO of HealthTransactions, Inc., a firm dedicated to administrative, financial, and clinical transactions success. Walt’s 30-year career in health care and information systems processing includes significant technology and operations experience spanning all major facets of the health care industry including provider, payer, clearinghouse and financial solutions delivered across mainframe, midrange and networked computer foundations.

Most recently Walt served as the Chief Technology, Security and Privacy Officer of Webify Solutions a leading Web services applications vendor recently acquired by IBM, and Chief Technology, Security and Privacy Officer for Availity, which is a health care clearinghouse created by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida and Humana. Under Walt's technology leadership, Availity successfully integrated a host of desperate technology foundations and platforms which earned Availity the reputation as one of the most successful clearinghouse startups in health care, and garnered Availity the AstraZeneca-NMHCC Partnership Award, the TETHIE Award for Most Innovative IT Solution in the Payer Community, the E-Fusion Award, and the eHealthcare Leadership Award.

As Vice President of HIPAA Solutions for the TriZetto Group, Walt was responsible for the development and operation of health care related Internet solutions and strategic partnership alliances. Walt also served as Vice President of Healthcare for CMC, helping them to launch their healthcare division, and as a senior healthcare consultant for PriceWaterhouseCoopers, LLP, performing in the role as a Director within the PwC Healthcare Consulting Practice.

Walt started his healthcare career as a Navy Corpsman with a Dental Technician rating, and in the early 80’s designed and authored one of the first desktop networked solutions for dentists, physicians and clinics; the Patient Management System (PMS). In prior healthcare engagements Walt designed and managed the development of the South Carolina State Health Purchasing Alliance (SHPA) healthcare benefits rating and quoting application, the Florida Community Heath Purchasing Alliance (CHPA) health plan billing renewals client/server application, and managed numerous solutions and technology projects across a wide range of national and regional health plans and Third Party Administrators.

Widely recognized as a leading healthcare technologist and HIPAA authority, Walt is currently consulting to large national and regional health plans to direct their provider e-capabilities and migration of business practices, functions and policies toward e-commerce interaction supporting self-service and self-administration. Current industry leadership roles include serving as the Executive Director of ePrescribe Florida; a collaboration of Florida’s prescribing community working to accelerate the adoption and success of electronic prescribing and medical records.

Walt has served as the keynote and featured speaker at dozens of healthcare conferences, forums, and HIPAA events. In prior industry leadership roles, Walt has served as the Co-Chair of a CMS Sponsored Insurance Commissioner Task Force which included the thirteen Southern States, and is the founding Chair of the Southern Healthcare Administrative Regional Process (SHARP), a public and private collaboration of private health care organizations and Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Walt is also one of the founding Security and Privacy Co-Chairs for the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDi) Strategic National Implementation Process (SNIP) and serves on the executive boards of the HIPAA Conformance Certification Organization (HCCO) and the HIPAA Action Workgroup of Kentucky (HAWK).

Walt has twice been awarded the WEDI Award of Merit and the WEDI Distinguished Service Awards, and has received Leadership awards from SHARP and the Healthcare Information and Management System Society (HIMSS).