“What’s the most interesting thing you’ve done as a VNSNY summer intern?”

This summer, VNSNY employed over 40 college interns in various departments throughout the organization. Our roving reporter Joe Liggio (who was an intern himself this summer) met with some of them and asked: “What’s the most interesting thing you’ve done as a VNSNY summer intern?” Here’s what they said!

Alane Flores

(Alane worked in Benefits and attends Alfred University. This was her second summer at VNSNY.)

“Helping my supervisor. Because I work with HR and Benefits, I helped out with documents for the auditors. That’s been interesting, because I have to work with both current and previous employees—which is over 10,000 employees in total! So it’s been really interesting to see old documents from the 1980s, 1990s, and to see how VNSNY changed over the years.”

Nicole Sand

(Nicole worked in Marketing and attends Towson University. This was her second summer at VNSNY.)

“I presented a competitive analysis based off of our competition on social media platforms to Catherine Callaway, Vice President of Marketing and Development. I thought that was pretty cool, someone who is that high up being able to take time out of her day to actually sit there and listen to an intern talk, and hear what I had to say.”

Abokor Ismael

(Abokor worked in Finance and attends Texas Christian University. This was his first summer at VNSNY.)

“I began learning as soon as I arrived here. For instance, I didn’t know anything about how to write rules for Workday, the new financial management software. Then my boss and my mentor and I came together one time and we learned how to do it. The fact that I was learning along with both my boss and my mentor at the same time was very exciting. We were able to write a lot of rules for the software after that.”

Kayla Barnes

(Kayla worked in Community Mental Health Services and attends Stony Brook University. This was her first summer at VNSNY.)

“One of my first weeks here, I got to help my supervisor in the case she was working on. I felt like I was a detective! Basically, my supervisor and I read different clinicals and we compared the facts between all of them. We had notes on each one, and we were trying to see if the dates matched up. It was kind of like ‘solving’ a case. I felt really involved, and that was cool.”

Steve Warren

(Steve worked in the Claims Department at VNSNY CHOICE and attends Washington and Lee University. This was his first summer at VNSNY.)

“I never knew about the credentialing side of an insurance company. Diving in and reading and learning about how providers get credentialed by an insurance company—I never really knew that existed. Being immersed in a company I didn’t even know about and now helping them, I think that’s interesting. Reading the news, I’m always exposed to finance jobs—but coming here, being exposed to a company that I’d never heard of, and now working for them, especially in the healthcare industry, which is helping others, that’s extremely interesting to me.”

Nia Daniels

(Nia worked in Compliance and attends John Jay College of Criminal Justice. This was her second summer at VNSNY.)

“To me, the most interesting thing has been working on a team here at VNSNY. By working on a team, I’ve learned a lot about myself, my strengths and weaknesses. I’ve learned that I like to be in control, but at the same time I’m very observant of my coworkers. I’m very independent and I didn’t think that I’d be a good teammate, to be honest, but I’ve actually learned that I work well on a team. At the same time, when I work with people, I learn a lot about the concepts here at work. I also like to ask a lot of questions, because I feel that if I don’t understand something, it’s important to ask questions to clarify.”

Olivia Billeci

(Olivia worked in Community Mental Health Services and attends Binghamton University. This was her second summer at VNSNY.)

“I think my most interesting work has been the event planning that I do. For example, I got to plan the ribbon-cutting event for the new CMHS building! Right now I’m planning our second Community Mental Health intern event, where all the interns from every mental health program come together to get to know each other and eat food and sit together with their supervisors.”

Joe Liggio

(Joe worked in Enterprise Communications and attends Manhattan College. This was his third summer at VNSNY.)

“I’ve really enjoyed meeting and working with a wide range of people from all across the company during my time here. Because my work with Enterprise Communications often involves travelling to different offices, helping with staff events, meeting with employees to do interviews and take photos, and things like that, I’ve gotten to interact with a lot of really great people. It’s crazy to think that I first met some of our employees back in 2017 when I was new and unfamiliar with the company, and that now I can walk around my building and see old faces and say hello to people who recognize me, and actually ask how I’ve been since!”

Katie Sinise

(Katie worked in Government Affairs and attends Fordham University. This was her first summer at VNSNY.)

“The first week I was here, in early June, I got to go to City Hall to help with our lobbying effort on the New York City Council budget. They were about to pass the budget for next year and we had a list of budget priorities, including some program funding that we were trying to get on the budget—so we were trying to talk to council members and give them our list and everything. I went with Tristan Macdonald,who’s in my department in Government Affairs. It was cool to be there.”

Zach Saliterman

(Zach worked in Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis and attends Providence College. This was his first summer at VNSNY.)

“I’ve been working on a project looking at the potential impact of the hospice benefit being transitioned into Medicare Advantage. I was able to attend a conference in Washington D.C. to hear panelists discuss this specific issue, including Seema Verma, the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Alex Azar, the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I went with EVP and Chief Financial Officer Dan Savitt, Director of Managed Care Contracting Devin Woodley, and VP of Government Affairs Dan Lowenstein. I liked learning more about the industry and hearing about the innovations that are happening.”

To read about some of last year’s summer interns, click here.