Denese Blake-Newell Email & Phone Number

Melville, New York

Worked as team leader on several enhancement and new projects starting from project initiation till roll out and warranty support using Mainframe COBOL, VSAM, JCL, JCLP, Endeavor, File Manager, SharePoint, CA Service Desk Manager, Clarity, MS Visio, Excel, Word

Conceptualized, designed, developed and led development of robust software products for Medical and Dental claims processing applications in an insurance industry. Acted as Team leader to consistently deliver optimal solutions on time, error free and within budget in a complex, highly intense environment.Enabled company to save over 2M yearly in payments to terminated providers by leading team in working across other IT areas, Business users and DBAs to implement a major enhancement to the current payment process. Provided regression testing scenarios outside the scope of what was required for the project.New releases accepted and implemented on time despite dealing with urgent performance issues during project development. Worked closely with business users and DBAs while redesigning and recoding with minimum impact. Completed projects with limited resources, tight schedule and high pressure from customer. Business processing made simpler by being part of a team to effectively plan high level program designs based on requirements, translated them to programs and creating JCL to execute the programs. Provided test support to users both before and after implementation.Developed IBM Crystal reports for business users replacing aging batch reporting methods enabling users to analyze and interpret important information without having to sift through an entire database. Technology involved Crystal reports and DB2/SQL

In-depth knowledge and experience of system analysis, design, user interface, coding and testing, implementation, maintenance, support and troubleshooting of production problems in an Insurance/Health Care Industry.Provided support and schedule running monthly jobs to enable customers to receive their checks in time. Worked closely with production support team to resolve any job issues making sure that system was available at all times.Reviewed system requirements and provided cost analysis that included estimates for coding, writing test plans and user testing, production implementation, rollout support. Strong ability to create Processes that are easy to understand, enhance and maintain.Communicated complex requirements effectively with end users resulting in successful project/enhancement completed within time and budget constraints

Supported and enhanced existing Medical processing system providing resolutions for issues reported by business users. Reviewed, implemented and provided support for monthly pricing data for Medical/Surgical/Dental/HCPCS/Anesthesia Data loads. Increased productivity of 500+ processors and reduced claims processing time by 40% by being part of a team that made significant coding and testing enhancement to the Claims processing online system.Made sure system produced accurate payments to providers by doing monthly review, updates, implementing and support to the Medical/Dental/Surgical pricing data jobs. Worked closely with end users to resolve issues within a timely manner. Reviewed programs, JCL and data making changes as needed and provided regression.

Bachelor Of Business Administration (Bba), Computer Science

Diploma, Computer Programming

Studied programming languages: COBOL, PL1, BASIC, JCL over a 15 month period. Received an 'A' in each course.