Marina Davar

About

Marina Davar: educator, program builder, and practice operator

Marina Davar has spent her career on both sides of the healthcare workforce equation: building the programs that train clinical staff and running the practice that hires them.

The short version

Marina Davar is a healthcare education and practice-management leader based in Cincinnati, Ohio, serving the tri-state region of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.

As Dean of Dental Studies at Beckfield College, Marina did not inherit a program. She built one. Starting from a blank page, she designed the dental assisting curriculum, navigated CODA accreditation, planned and equipped a clinical training facility, built externship partnerships with regional dental practices, convened an advisory board of working clinicians and employers, hired and developed faculty, and put assessment systems in place to prove students were actually learning.

Just as importantly, she taught. Marina's students were adult learners: first-generation college students, career changers, and working adults holding jobs and families together while they retrained. She became known as the instructor who believed in the students nobody else had bet on, and her classroom became a place where people who had been told college "wasn't for them" finished, credentialed, and got hired.

Today Marina is the practice manager of a large medical practice in Cincinnati. She owns revenue cycle management end to end: denials, clean claim rate, days in A/R, wRVU productivity, along with payer contracting, credentialing (CAQH, PECOS, Ohio Medicaid), scheduling architecture, HR and staffing in one of the most competitive healthcare wage markets in the Midwest, and compliance across HIPAA, OSHA, CLIA, Stark/AKS, and Ohio's OARRS prescription monitoring requirements. She administers the practice's EHR, manages value-based care reporting, and navigates the cross-border licensure, payer, and telehealth complexity that comes with practicing where Ohio meets Kentucky and Indiana.

That combination is the point. Marina trains the clinical staff, and she has been the employer trying to hire them. She knows what a new graduate walks in able to do, what the practice actually needs on day one, and why the gap between those two things persists. She writes about closing it.

Marina Davar, former Dean of Dental Studies at Beckfield College and Cincinnati medical practice manager
Marina Davar, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Career timeline

Two careers that turned out to be one

  1. Founding Chapter · Beckfield College

    Dean of Dental Studies: building the program from zero

    Marina Davar designed the dental assisting program from the ground up: curriculum mapped backward from what employers need on day one, CODA accreditation navigation, clinical facility design and equipment planning on a career-college budget, externship infrastructure with regional dental practices, an advisory board of working clinicians, faculty hiring and development, and the assessment systems that held it all accountable.

  2. In the Classroom

    Teaching adult learners, and keeping them

    Alongside the dean's role, Marina taught. Her students were the career-college population: first-generation students, career changers, parents working second shift. She built a reputation for teaching clinical skills patiently and for refusing to give up on students the system had already written off. Her graduates got hired.

  3. Current · Cincinnati

    Practice Manager, large medical practice

    Marina now runs operations for a large Cincinnati medical practice: revenue cycle management and denials, KPI fluency (days in A/R, clean claim rate, wRVU productivity), payer contracting, credentialing across CAQH, PECOS, and Ohio Medicaid, scheduling and operations architecture, HR and staffing against TriHealth, UC Health, Mercy Health, and Christ Hospital wage competition, compliance (HIPAA, OSHA, CLIA, Stark/AKS, OARRS), EHR administration, value-based care, and tri-state OH/KY/IN cross-border complexity.

  4. Now

    Writing across both worlds

    Through her writing and her blog, Marina Davar connects the classroom and the practice: what programs should teach, what employers actually need, and how independent practices survive in a system-dominated market.

Areas of expertise

What Marina Davar works on

Education & Workforce

Program building & adult pedagogy

  • Dental assisting curriculum design, backward from employer need
  • CODA / accreditation navigation and site-visit readiness
  • Clinical facility design, equipment planning, and externship infrastructure
  • Advisory boards, faculty hiring, and faculty development
  • Retention and assessment for first-generation and adult learners

Practice Management

Operations & revenue cycle

  • Revenue cycle management: denials, clean claim rate, days in A/R, wRVU productivity
  • Payer contracting and credentialing (CAQH, PECOS, Ohio Medicaid)
  • Scheduling architecture, HR, and staffing in a system-dominated wage market
  • Compliance: HIPAA, OSHA, CLIA, Stark/AKS, OARRS
  • EHR administration, value-based care, and tri-state OH/KY/IN regulatory complexity