What are the red flags for Michele Baker Richardson, JD?

Michele Baker Richardson, JD

Trustee, term 2027-2029

President & CEO | HEA Consultants, LLC

Last verified November 4, 2026

7 Red Flags

Affiliations

•President and CEO of HEA Consultants, LLC, a consulting and executive coaching firm.
•Immediate past chair of the Advocate Health board; elected vice chair in December 2022 after the Advocate Aurora Health-Atrium Health merger and chair in January 2024.
•Previously listed as chair-elect (FY2018-FY2021) and chair (FY2022-FY2023) on Advocate Aurora Health's Form 990 filings.
•NACD Directorship Certified.
•Affiliated with Ronald McDonald House Atlanta, The Links, Incorporated, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and The Black Directors Health Equity Agenda.
•JD from Yale Law School; bachelor's degree in economics and organizational behavior from Brown University.

Financial / Compensation

•Advocate Health reported 2025 revenue of more than $38.9 billion, operating income of more than $1.5 billion (a 4.0% margin, up from 3.5%) and a $4.6 billion bottom line driven by about $3 billion in net investment income, with 283 days cash on hand.
•Advocate Health's FY2024 Form 990 reports $135,767 paid to Baker Richardson as board chair through related organizations, up from $131,433 in FY2023 as chair-elect.
•Advocate Aurora Health's Form 990s report her board pay at $90,966 (FY2018), $132,165 (FY2019), $126,333 (FY2020 and FY2021), $143,767 (FY2022) and $131,433 (FY2023).
•On the FY2024 Advocate Health Form 990 filed during her chairmanship, CEO Eugene Woods was reported at $22,870,197 in compensation from related organizations plus $2,911,078 in other compensation, about $25.8 million in total.
•Woods was reported at $16,507,215 plus $2,069,687 in other compensation as co-CEO in FY2023, meaning his reported pay rose roughly 39% in the first year she chaired the board.
•HEA Consultants is a private LLC with no public financial disclosures.

Lobbying and Political

•Advocate Health reported $2.02 million in in-house federal lobbying expenses for 2025 ($850,000, $380,000, $390,000 and $400,000 by quarter) and $1.87 million for the first three quarters of 2026, including $1.17 million in Q1 2026 alone.
•Advocate also paid outside firms in 2025, including BGR Government Affairs ($320,000), Venable ($200,000) and McDermott+ ($120,000, under the Advocate Aurora name); Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center reported another $80,000.
•Advocate's 2025 and 2026 lobbying reports list the 340B program, Medicaid funding, Medicare Advantage, site-neutral and hospital reimbursement policy, surprise billing and price transparency, and Stark Law and Anti-Kickback reform.
•Advocate's in-house lobbying team includes Meagan Thompson, a former senior policy adviser to Rep. Robin Kelly and legislative assistant to Rep. Sean Casten.
•No federal lobbying registration for HEA Consultants, LLC was found.

Revolving Door

•Chaired the board of Advocate Health through the post-merger integration of Advocate Aurora and Atrium.
•Brings a professional-director and governance-consultant profile rather than a hospital operating role to the AHA board.
•Joins the AHA Board of Trustees for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2027.

Home System Record

•Advocate Health's charity care at cost was $148M (latest hospital tax returns), 11% of the estimated $1.3B a year its tax exemptions are worth (Rojas Report estimate: federal and state income tax plus property tax on hospital land and buildings; sales tax not counted).
•Advocate Health has 859 340B contract pharmacy arrangements registered with HRSA (OPAIS registry, Sept. 29, 2026).
•Advocate Health was formed by the December 2022 combination of Advocate Aurora Health and Atrium Health, creating one of the largest nonprofit systems in the country.
•The AHA credits her with guiding Advocate's board through COVID-19, FTC proceedings and workforce challenges and with integrating the merged organizations' cultures.
•Advocate lists the 340B program as a lobbying issue in every 2025 and 2026 quarterly federal report reviewed, signaling a material stake in the program's drug discounts.
•Advocate now runs 69 hospitals and more than 1,000 sites of care in six states with about 167,000 employees, and CEO Eugene Woods credits the 2022 merger with $1.5 billion in annual operating savings.
•Advocate's Atrium Health is taking over WakeMed in Raleigh: Wake County commissioners approved the deal 5-2 on September 21, 2026, with Atrium becoming sole member, funding $2 billion in capital and $150 million for a county health program, and capping rate increases at 1.5 times annual Medicare increases for only five years; it still needs North Carolina attorney general certification.
•State Treasurer Brad Briner, who runs the state employee health plan, warned that the WakeMed deal would reduce competition and let the combined system negotiate higher prices.

Litigation and Scrutiny

•Wisconsin residents filed a class action in February 2024 in the Eastern District of Wisconsin alleging Advocate Aurora used acquisitions, all-or-nothing contracting and anti-steering terms to raise commercial prices from 231% to 253% of Medicare; Advocate calls the suit meritless, and its current status was not verified.
•In June 2026 Advocate Aurora reached a settlement to end a proposed class action in the Northern District of Illinois alleging it charged workers an unlawful tobacco surcharge through its employee health plan; terms were not disclosed.
•Advocate Aurora paid $12.225 million to settle class claims that Meta Pixel tracking on its websites exposed patient data, a settlement approved during Baker Richardson's board tenure.
•Atrium Health (then Carolinas HealthCare System) settled the U.S. Justice Department and North Carolina antitrust suit filed in 2016 over anti-steering contract terms, agreeing in 2018 to stop blocking insurers from steering patients to lower-cost rivals.
•The AHA release references FTC proceedings during her board leadership without naming the matter.

Red Flags

Advocate made a $4.6 billion bottom line in 2025, mostly from about $3 billion in investment income, while keeping tax-exempt status and lobbying to protect 340B program discounts.

Baker Richardson chaired the board that oversaw a reported $25.8 million package for CEO Eugene Woods in FY2024, a 39% jump from FY2023.

She has collected more than $880,000 in Advocate board fees from FY2018 through FY2024 as a director of a tax-exempt system.

Advocate Health spent about $2.7 million on federal lobbying in 2025 counting outside firms ($2.02 million in-house plus $640,000 to BGR, Venable and McDermott+), with the 340B program and site-neutral payment among its top issues.

Her AHA seat comes from her governance role at a mega-merger system, not from running a hospital, adding another voice for consolidated systems to the trade group's board.

She steered the board of a system built by a multistate mega-merger, the consolidation model that free-market critics say reduces competition and raises prices for employers and patients.

Advocate's Atrium unit is absorbing WakeMed with a price cap that expires after five years, over the state treasurer's warning that it will raise prices, and Advocate Aurora faces a pending Wisconsin antitrust class action alleging prices rose to 253% of Medicare.

Pattern Summary

Baker Richardson is a professional board director whose path to the AHA runs through chairing Advocate Health, the mega-system created by the Advocate Aurora-Atrium merger. Her board approved pay of roughly $25.8 million for its CEO, booked a $4.6 billion 2025 bottom line on investment gains and kept expanding, with Atrium now absorbing WakeMed over price warnings from North Carolina's treasurer, while facing an antitrust class action in Wisconsin. Her trustee seat adds a consolidation-era governance voice to an AHA board already dominated by large systems.

Michele Baker Richardson, JD

Red Flags

Sources and Citations