Eric Thul is Interim President and Executive Director of Hearts for Home Care, advancing the organization's advocacy mission to protect and expand access to home-based care.

Eric serves as Chief of Staff at BAYADA Home Health Care, a $2B+ nonprofit home health care organization serving thousands of clients across multiple states. Over 18 years at BAYADA, Eric has held a series of senior leadership roles at BAYADA, including Chief People Officer and Practice President of the Medicaid Personal Care Services business unit. Prior to BAYADA, he was a Principal at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants.

Eric also serves as a board member of the Baptist–BAYADA Home Health joint venture in Jacksonville, Florida, and as an acting board member of the Health Promotion Council, a nonprofit serving the greater Philadelphia region.

Eric holds a B.S. in Business Management and Applied Economics from Cornell University and completed graduate study in Healthcare Management and Finance at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. He lives in Moorestown, New Jersey, with his wife Lindsey and their two sons.

Leadership: Member, Partnership for Medicaid Home-based Care (PMHC) Private Duty Nursing Subcommittee; Board member, NC Coalition on Aging; Co-chair, NC Serious Illness Coalition Subcommittee on Public Policy and Legislative Affairs; Member, NC All Ages, All Stages, and Co-chair Service Option Work-group

Lee Dobson, MPA, CPHQ, is a healthcare executive with over 30 years of experience in home health and hospice government affairs, public policy, and grassroots advocacy. She works with state and national associations, legislators, state and federal government agencies, state licensure agencies, and Medicare,
Medicaid to help seniors, children and adults living with disabilities and medical complexities get the home care and hospice services they need. She also works to preserve the jobs of dedicated nurses, therapists, habilitation technicians, and home health aides who care for them. As part of a team who understands the importance of advocating for and educating on the value of home care and hospice, Dobson works to improve access to high-quality care at home.

In 1994, Lee started her healthcare careers by spending five years at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina (Palmetto Government Benefits Administrators the fiscal intermediary for Medicare) in Columbia, South Carolina; five years as the director of regulatory affairs with the Association for Home & Hospice Care of North Carolina (AHHC); five years with the Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence as the
program director for home health and long term care quality initiatives; and 15 years with BAYADA Home Health Care as the Division Director of Government Affairs. She received the Leslie Carswell Leadership Award from the Association for Home & Hospice Care of NC in 2018.

Lee has a master’s degree in public administration with a focus on health administration from Troy State University, and received an international accreditation as a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ).

Leadership: Board of Directors Chairperson, NJ Home Care and Hospice Association; NJ Home Care and Hospice Association committee member

Louise Lindenmeier, RN, BSN, is a passionate advocate for medically-fragile children, adults, and seniors and the compassionate health care professionals who enable them to remain in the comfort and safety of home. Since 2003, Ms. Lindenmeier has played an instrumental role in educating legislators, regulators, and professional associations about the importance of home health care and how it can improve the quality of life for thousands of people while reducing costs for an over-burdened health care system.

When advocating for home health care, Ms. Lindenmeier draws on her expertise and experience as a nurse for many years. To her advocacy work, she brings a wealth of information she gained while working in home care and hospitals. She has an in-depth understanding of the complexities of government-funded health plans and the challenges that go along with them.

Ms. Lindenmeier earned an associate’s degree in nursing from Pasadena City College in Pasadena, CA and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from California State University, Dominguez Hills, CA. She also has coursework towards a master’s degree in health care administration from the University of La Verne in La Verne, CA.

Leadership: Board Member, South Carolina Home Care and Hospice Association (SCHCHA); Chair, SC Private Duty Nursing Coalition; Florida Private Duty Nursing Coalition; Chair, Home Care Association of America – South Carolina Chapter; Winthrop University Health Care Management Advisory Board

Melissa Allman has more than 25 years of experience working in home health care. Prior to joining Hearts for Home Care, Melissa was the Division Director overseeing all of BAYADA’s South Carolina offices. In her role in operations, she supported all office directors to ensure that South Carolina clients received the best possible care. During this time, Melissa began to learn of the challenges of recruiting and retaining nurses across the state, largely due to low state Medicaid reimbursement rates for home health care services. As she continued to hear the access to care challenges that clients and parents faced as a result of this shortage, she became inspired to do more. 

Melissa transitioned to advocacy to work more closely with South Carolina lawmakers to educate, support, and provide guidance on the need for reimbursement rate increases, the recruitment and retention issues that stem from chronic underfunding, and the necessity of such increases to support access to home health care by medically-complex South Carolinians. In addition to meeting with lawmakers, Melissa also meets regularly with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to also educate our regulatory leadership regarding the issues families and providers face due to the low reimbursement rate.

Leadership: Chair, Delaware Association for Home & Community Care Legislative Committee; Chair, Missouri Alliance for Home Care Private Duty Nursing Task Force

Born with a passion for helping people and standing up for what’s right, Rob is incredibly proud to be part of the Hearts for Home Care team. Rob Lattin has more than 15 years of experience in government affairs and advocacy. Before joining Hearts for Home Care, Rob worked in Washington D.C., including as a policy advisor and the deputy communications director for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, and as the Associate Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League’s mid-Atlantic region.

During his tenure at Hearts for Home Care, Rob has been an advocacy powerhouse—helping pave the way for increased legislative awareness of the home care industry and the challenges providers, caregivers, and clients face in delivering and accessing quality, reliable home care services. His institutional knowledge and lobbying prowess have helped to increase home care funding for both personal care and home nursing programs across multiple mid-Atlantic and Midwest states. Rob received his graduate degree from the City College of New York and his undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona.

Leadership: Member, Regulatory and Policy Committee and Legislative Committee of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO); Member, Advisory Council of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice (NAHC); Member, Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (PQHH) Home Team

Maggie DiPasquale has aspired to be in the advocacy space since childhood, and is proud to be an integral member of the Hearts for Home Care team. She first joined BAYADA Home Health Care in March of 2018 as part of the Mid-Atlantic advocacy team, where she focused on state issues in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. As Hearts for Home Care began to grow, develop, and have a more vocal and visible role in Washington, D.C., Maggie joined the federal affairs team as senior manager in April 2022, where she led BAYADA Home Health Care’s response to the annual CMS updates for home health, hospice and Medicaid. 

Maggie continues to lead Hearts for Home Care’s federal advocacy efforts, focusing on increasing congressional and regulatory awareness of Medicare- and Medicaid-based home health care services and the development of public policies favorable to the home health care industry and its clients and caregivers. Her efforts have helped to prevent significant cuts to federal home health funding that would have destabilized the home health care industry.

She is valued in D.C. as a public policy expert in the home health care space. Maggie obtained both her undergraduate degree in political science and her master’s degree in public administration from West Chester University.

Leadership: Home Care Member, Pennsylvania Long Term Care Council; Member, Lackawanna County Area Agency on Aging Advisory Board

Mike has been in the home care field since 2011, when he joined BAYADA Home Health Care as a community liaison for two service offices in northeast Pennsylvania. He was immediately interested in advocacy and became a Hearts for Home Care Ambassador. Throughout his ambassadorship, Mike went well beyond his call of duty and met with more than 100 legislators and educate them on the value of home care. His passion for advocacy resulted in him earning the title of Hearts for Home Care Pennsylvania Ambassador of the Year four years in a row and National Ambassador of the Year – twice!

Eager to translate his passion for advocacy to all home care recipients, families, and caregivers, Mike joined Hearts for Home Care as a grassroots advocacy manager. This program, which Mike has led for the past five years, is widely acclaimed as the leading grassroots advocacy platform in the home health care industry. The number of Hearts for Home Care advocates has doubled in size since he began leading Hearts for Home Care’s grassroots advocacy program.

Mike is passionate about engaging the wider home care community in sharing their voices through legislative advocacy. He values one-on-one connection and continued education for all advocates, so he can meet each individual “where they are” in their unique and personal advocacy journey. Mike graduated from Penn State University in 1996 and earned his Certificate in PAC & Grassroots Management from the Public Affairs Council (PAC) in 2023.

Leadership: Member, Public Affairs Council; Member, Women in Government Relations.

Marissa is passionate about communicating an effective advocacy message that resonates with advocates, legislators, and the media to ensure home care issues are being spoken for and prioritized. After working for multiple political campaigns in Pennsylvania, Marissa decided to enter the advocacy space in 2019 to be a voice for the many without one. Marissa began her career in home care advocacy by supporting Hearts for Home Care in the northeast region, monitoring policy and advocacy initiatives in New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 

As BAYADA’s advocacy arm continued to grow, so did the need for increased media and online awareness. Marissa transitioned to H4HC’s public affairs team in 2020 to help spearhead efforts to broaden public and legislative awareness of home care issues through earned media and social media efforts. She has grown the Hearts for Home Care’s social media presence exponentially and continues to find new ways to expand our digital footprint and communicate with our legislative, public, and online audiences.  

Marissa has successfully managed both federal and state-focused media campaigns that capitalize on storytelling and issue-based advocacy to help move the needle on policy changes. Marissa understands the value that personal experiences have on creating a compelling story and uses these individual narratives to cultivate meaningful relationships with advocates, legislators, and the media both online and on the ground.  Marissa graduated from West Chester University with a dual degree in Political Science and Spanish in 2018.

Leadership: HCAOA NJ Chapter Legislative committee; HCHANJ Legislative Committee, Nominating Committee, and PDN and PCA Workgroups.

Shelby Myers has worked for Hearts for Home Care since 2020, assisting in securing increases for both the Private Duty Nurses and the Personal Care Assistant program in the Northeast region, covering New Jersey and New England. These increases have translated to millions of dollars for home care funding, better caregiver recruitment and retention, and increased access-to-care for home care beneficiaries. Prior to H4HC, Shelby worked for BAYADA’s Sunflower division for three years as a family advocate, where her passion to help families and clients included enlisting the support of legislators to help make a difference in clients’ lives.

This passion led to her being named NJ H4HC ambassador of the year, as well as H4HC National Ambassador of the Year. In 2023, Shelby led the formation of the NJ Legislature Home Care Caucus, a coalition of industry providers, organizations and associations who share in the same goals and challenges of home care from reimbursement needs, recruitment and retention of caregivers, and most importantly—for clients to receive the care they require to remain safely in the home. 

She is a passionate champion of homecare and all whom are “differently abled”, which led to her formerly being named Chair of the NJ Epilepsy Task Force and NJ Epilepsy Advocate of the Year.  Her resolve is to ensure that home care recipients are seen, heard, and understood. Shelby graduated a BA in Public Service and Administration from Villanova University and is currently a Master of Public Health candidate at Brown University.

Bliss Pointer is dedicated to ensuring access to high-quality home care, home health, and hospice services in rural and urban communities. She leverages her expertise in advocacy and policy to raise awareness of the challenges faced by families who rely on services and the staff that make care possible.

Bliss began her career in 2022 as a Senate intern in the North Carolina General Assembly, where she worked with multiple legislators on constituent communications and public outreach, including newsletters and social media. She later joined a contract lobbying firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she supported lobbying efforts for thirteen clients across sectors such as healthcare, environmental, and nonprofits focused on underserved communities.

Bliss holds a bachelor’s degree in political science with a concentration in international affairs and a minor in agricultural business from North Carolina State University. Her passion for home care and hospice services began long before her academic journey. As a third-generation home care and hospice advocate, Bliss is committed to continuing her family’s legacy of promoting access to high quality care in the home. During her off time, Bliss enjoys horseback riding, going to North Carolina beaches, and working on her family farm. 

Josh Zoppina joined Hearts for Home Care in May 2025, bringing with him a wealth of experience in political strategy and public policy. With a strong background in campaign leadership and legislative affairs, Josh has served as Political Director for a U.S. Senate campaign, Executive Director of the Burlington County Republican Committee, and Campaign Manager and Communications Assistant for a New Jersey State Senator and two State Assemblymen.

Josh’s passion for home care advocacy is deeply personal. While living with his grandfather on their family farm, he witnessed the transformative impact of in-home care. Experiencing firsthand how his grandfather was able to age with dignity and comfort in his own home inspired Josh to dedicate his professional efforts to advancing policies that protect and expand access to quality home care.

A proud graduate of West Chester University of Pennsylvania, Josh earned his bachelor’s degree in history in 2019. Today, he combines his political acumen and heartfelt commitment to ensure that all individuals—regardless of age or health condition—have the opportunity to receive care where they feel most at home.