The Mary Free Bed Advisory Group
Your Partner in Strategic Growth
A-rated by Fitch
Ability to leverage capital for new construction
132+ year legacy

Our Goal
We aim to empower our partners to succeed while advancing the field of rehabilitation, spanning acute care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient programs, skilled nursing facilities, long-term care hospitals, and home-care services.
Our Approach
Operations
With a focus on quality and efficiency, we develop standardized practices for admissions, referrals, care navigation, and more. Leveraging years of experience and continuous process improvement, we measure, analyze, and trend operational performance to create actionable plans that drive optimal outcomes.
Clinical Services
Our evidence-based clinical protocols cover condition-specific care pathways, rehabilitation nursing, and therapeutic interventions to deliver exceptional care.
Survey Readiness
We maintain a robust framework for continuous survey readiness, ensuring compliance with Joint Commission and CARF standards. Our history of successful accreditation surveys, including multiple specialty accreditations, underscores our commitment to excellence.
Our Process
Our team follows a three-step methodology for comprehensive analysis.
- Working with your team, we’ll gather pertinent information from your rehabilitation program.
- Then, we analyze data to identify performance improvement opportunities.

- Our experts study the findings as they relate to your goals, capacity, competition and predicted rehabilitation trends.
- We’ll present our recommendations to your team and collaboratively create action plans.

- We provide support and guidance as your team implements the action plans. Expect on-site visits to reinforce the process and overcome obstacles that may impede success.


Scope of Services
Mary Free Bed is growing nationally, and we welcome new system partners. We provide a variety of partnership options across care settings, each tailored to successfully address your specific program goals and foster positive outcomes and patient satisfaction.
Strategic partnerships and professional service agreements include:
- Rehabilitation operations
- Clinical services
- Joint venture/joint operating agreements
You’ll find more information in our Advisory Services brochure here.
Inpatient Services
- Program
- Quality performance
- Productivity
- Bed need/Service demand
- Medical necessity analysis
- Physician education
- Interdisciplinary education
- Documentation analysis
- Coder training
- PPS coordinator training
- Temporary PPS coordinator staffing
- PPS education
- Navigation of the appeals process
- Preparation of appeal documents
- Quality reporting and program measures education and training
- Quality and outcome tracking
- Space planning and design
- Equipment purchasing
- Specialty program development
Outpatient Services
- Performance analysis
- Quality and outcome tracking
- Productivity analysis
- Space planning and design
- Equipment purchasing
Performance improvement
Documentation, coding and billing
Accreditation and survey preparation
Audits and appeals
Service Delivery Options
In-Person Visits
We value the benefits of face-to-face interaction. Our team schedules on-site visits to understand your needs and ensure the success of action plans. We also invite you to visit Mary Free Bed to experience our programs in action.
On-Site Lunch & Learns
You bring the lunch, and we’ll bring the knowledge. Choose from general rehabilitation topics or customized content tailored to your needs. Many courses include pre- and post-testing for added value.
Live Webinars
Convenient, tailored webinars delivered remotely to suit your team’s schedule and location.

Partnership Results
The Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation System is an innovative alliance of more than four dozen hospitals and providers dedicated to enhancing patient care and rehabilitation services. Established in 2011, the system extends Mary Free Bed’s expertise and specialized services to other settings, creating a seamlessly integrated system of rehabilitative care for patients.
Partnership Highlights

Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation at Covenant HealthCare
- 2016: Submitted RFP response in 2016
- 2017: JOA Established with Inpatient Unit
- 2018 – 2019: Added outpatient services, physician group, Orthotics & Prosthetics + Bionics, and Autism program
- 2021: Built 60 bed freestanding facility connected to main campus

Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation at University of Michigan Health-Sparrow
- 2014: JOA Established
- 2016 – 2017: Phased expansion to 40 beds

Valley Health Mary Free Bed
- 2023: JOA Established in 2023 for existing 30 beds
- 2026: Anticipated opening of new 50 bed hospital

Mary Free Bed at Vandalia CAMC General Hospital
- 2023: Submitted RFP response i
- 2024: JOA Established in 2024
- 2027: Anticipated opening of new 50 bed hospital
Our Team
The Mary Free Bed Advisory Group is led by experienced professionals dedicated to advancing post-acute rehabilitation:
Joyal became part of the Mary Free Bed family in 2019, as vice president of the Mary Free Bed Advisory Group and John F. Butzer Center for Research & Innovation. With more than 20 years of experience in the world of acute inpatient rehabilitation, Joyal has a wealth of knowledge garnered from her experience in hospital administration.
Joyal has a successful record of programmatic growth, census development and navigating regulatory and compliance issues. She’s led Joint Commission and Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities surveys, including specialty accreditations. She was a former CARF surveyor and chairs The Future of Post Acute Payment Reform Committee for the American Medical Rehabilitation Association. She has diverse experience, including inpatient rehabilitation, home health care, swing beds, skilled nursing, acute care and outpatient rehabilitation. Before Joyal joined Mary Free Bed, she served as market director of inpatient rehabilitation services for the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Sinai-Grace Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit. She was the director of rehabilitation at Atlanta Medical Center in Atlanta Georgia, executive director for a freestanding rehabilitation hospital in northern Michigan and a manager of rehabilitation operations at Spectrum Health.
She completed a master’s degree in business administration at the University of North Alabama and a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy and Gerontology from Western Michigan University.
Sherry has more than 25 years of experience in health care leadership primarily focused on post-acute rehabilitation services. As a regional director for the Advisory Group, she’ll help develop a well-defined care transition program and assist with expansion of Mary Free Bed’s expertise.
Before joining Mary Free Bed in September 2020, Sherry worked as the director of Rehabilitation for Tenet Health’s home office in Dallas, which involved strategic development and operations support for its 17 inpatient rehabilitation programs across the country. Previously, she was the rehabilitation and orthopedic market lead for Baptist Health System, a Tenet subsidiary, in San Antonio.
She has a record of success with strategic growth, program development, hospital operations, program implementations, team leadership and data analytics to drive market share growth as well as process improvement initiatives.
Sherry earned a master’s degree in health administration and a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Southwest Texas State University.
Dr. Restum joined Mary Free Bed in 2020 as a senior consultant. Dr. Restum provides a broad spectrum of consultative services designed to position healthcare systems to sustain high quality performance in a value-based environment.
Over the course of his extensive career, Dr. Restum served as a CEO of a freestanding rehabilitation hospital and as the senior executive for post-acute services. His leadership was integral to the successful implementation of ACO’s and BPCI episodic models.
An executive member of the American Medical Rehab Providers Association (AMRPA), Dr. Restum holds a graduate degree in speech and language pathology and a doctoral degree in communication disorders and sciences, as well as in cognitive psychology.
Sho joined Mary Free Bed in 2015 and oversees various financial functions including annual financial planning, financial statement analysis and developing financial models across Mary Free Bed subsidiaries, partnerships, and clinical service lines. He also contributes to strategic planning, business and data needs, and goal setting for the organization.
Sho collaborates with leadership and network hospitals to develop partnerships, professional services agreements, and consulting agreements across the country, throughout the post-acute continuum.
Learn More
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'Be Advised' Podcast
The Mary Free Bed Advisory Group’s “Be Advised” podcast shines a spotlight on the field of medical rehabilitation and why it’s a critical component of health care. We feature interviews with industry leaders and medical experts on topics such as care transitions, patient access, virtual care, program design and space planning, research and nursing education.
Subscribe to learn about the many ways you can align your team for success by having a “rehabilitationship” with the Mary Free Bed Advisory Group.
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