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When people search for Melissa Masterton VP Finance Novant Health, they usually want to know who she is, what she does, and how she grew inside one of the biggest healthcare systems in the southeastern United States. Melissa Masterton is a senior finance and revenue cycle leader at Novant Health, a nonprofit system that runs hospitals, physician clinics, imaging centers and outpatient facilities across North Carolina and South Carolina. Her story is a good example of how a person can start in an entry-level accounting job and grow into a leader who helps shape how a large health system handles money, billing and patient access.
Who Is Melissa Masterton?
Melissa F. Masterton holds a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) degree and works in Charlotte, North Carolina. Today she is known as a Vice President in the revenue cycle team at Novant Health. In the past, she served as Vice President of Finance at the same organization, and this is why many people still search for her with the title “VP Finance.” Both roles are closely connected, because revenue cycle work sits right in the middle of hospital finance. If you are trying to understand her profile, it helps to think of her as a finance professional who moved from general accounting into the more specialized world of patient billing and access.
Education That Built the Foundation
Her education matches her career path very well. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Accounting gave her the base skills of reading numbers, tracking money and understanding financial reports. Later she completed her Master of Healthcare Administration at Pfeiffer University. This second degree added the healthcare side of the picture, such as how hospitals are managed, how patients move through care, and how decisions in a hospital affect both quality and cost. A mix of accounting and healthcare management is powerful, because hospitals need leaders who understand both the spreadsheet and the patient.
A Long Career Inside One Organization
One of the most interesting things about her journey is how long she has grown within Novant Health. According to public professional profiles, she began around the year 2000 as an accountant. She then moved up to manager, then director, then senior director, and by 2010 she became Vice President of Finance. In 2017 she moved into the Vice President of Revenue Cycle role. Staying and growing in one organization for more than two decades says a lot about trust, performance and the ability to adapt as the company changes. Novant Health itself has grown a lot in this period, and she has been part of that growth from the finance side.
From VP Finance to VP Revenue Cycle
Many readers get confused about her title, so it is worth explaining clearly. Her time as VP Finance covered the years when she worked on the broader financial side of the system. When she took on the revenue cycle role, her focus became more specific: making sure that the money a hospital earns for the care it gives is collected correctly, fairly and on time. This was not a step away from finance. It was a deeper step into one of its most important parts, because without a healthy revenue cycle a hospital cannot pay its staff, buy equipment or invest in new services.
What Does “Revenue Cycle” Actually Mean?
In simple words, the revenue cycle is the full journey of a patient’s bill, from the first appointment to the final payment. It starts before the patient even arrives, when the hospital checks insurance and explains costs. It continues during the visit, when services are recorded and coded correctly. Then it ends after the visit, when claims are sent to insurance companies and any remaining balance is collected from the patient. Professional groups such as the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) describe revenue cycle management as a key part of a hospital’s financial health. When this journey is smooth, patients feel less stress and hospitals stay financially strong.
The Areas She Leads
Novant Health’s public leadership page describes her as the vice president of integrated access services within the revenue cycle team. In that role she leads a team responsible for many parts of acute care revenue cycle. These include pre-visit services, financial counseling, patient access, utilization review, revenue integrity, charge master management, health information management, coding and patient financial services. This work covers acute care hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers across the Novant Health footprint. It is a very wide area, and each piece must work well with the others. For example, a coding mistake can delay a claim, and a missed insurance check can leave a patient with a surprise bill later.
Making Payments Easier for Patients
Technology has become a big part of her work. In a case study published by the healthcare technology company Cedar, Novant Health reported strong results after launching a new patient payment experience built for mobile phones. The case study states that the system added more than 30 million dollars in net profit in twelve months and delivered about seven times return on investment. Melissa Masterton is quoted in that story saying the implementation was complex, but the results were better than the team expected, and that the vendor acted like a true partner. This shows an important side of her leadership: she is willing to take on a hard project, work closely with partners and measure the real results afterward.
Working With a Larger Leadership Team
Revenue cycle leadership at Novant Health is a team effort. Heather Dunn serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, and Melissa Masterton works alongside other vice presidents such as Kelly Black. Becker’s Hospital Review reported that the system has reorganized its revenue cycle teams around the patient’s complete financial journey, aiming for clearer accountability and faster, more consistent service. The same report mentioned new leaders joining the team to bring in more innovation and technology. In a structure like this, experienced leaders who know the history of the organization are very valuable, because they can connect old systems with new ideas.
Why This Work Matters to Patients
Most people never think about the revenue cycle until they receive a confusing bill. That is exactly why this work matters. When financial counseling is clear, patients understand what they may owe before treatment. When patient access is smooth, they spend less time on forms and phone calls. When billing is accurate, they avoid errors and long disputes. Leaders in this field also have to follow strict federal rules from agencies like the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which means accuracy and honesty are not optional. Good revenue cycle leadership protects both the hospital and the patient.
Lessons From Her Career Path
There are a few practical lessons anyone can take from her profile. First, a strong base in accounting opens many doors in healthcare. Second, adding a healthcare administration degree can help a finance professional move into senior leadership. Third, staying curious about new technology, like digital payment tools, keeps a leader useful as the industry changes. Finally, long-term growth inside one organization can be just as valuable as moving between many companies, because deep knowledge of people and systems is hard to replace.
Final Thoughts
Melissa Masterton is a respected finance and revenue cycle leader at Novant Health with more than twenty years of experience in the same system. Her path from accountant to Vice President of Finance and then Vice President of Revenue Cycle shows steady growth built on education, hard work and adaptability. Whether you know her as “VP Finance” from her earlier role or as a revenue cycle leader today, her work supports something simple and important: helping patients get care and helping a large health system stay strong enough to keep serving its communities.
Stephen D. Schmitt is the founder and lead writer at Her Net Worth Journey. He created the site to make personal finance easier to understand and easier to act on, without the jargon that makes most money advice hard to follow. Stephen focuses on practical, number-driven guidance — the kind of advice a reader can apply the same day they read it. He writes about budgeting, investing, saving, and debt from a simple starting point: track the number, then make decisions that move it in the right direction. Stephen lives in Maitland, Florida, and manages Her Net Worth Journey directly, from the content to the free tools on the site.