‘Dream Job’ Suits Beaver Alumnus Leading Cass Health
Brett Altman serves as CEO for a growing enterprise consistently rated as one of the best rural hospitals in the United States
Brett Altman, a 1988 Buena Vista University graduate, has what he calls his “dream job,” serving as CEO of Cass Health in Atlantic, a growing enterprise consistently rated as one of the best rural hospitals in the United States.
“Chartis, a third-party organization whose mission is to improve healthcare, ranked Cass Health as one of the top 10 critical-access hospitals in the country for each of the past four years, out of 1,361 sites,” says Altman.
Cass Health achieved high marks based on data for quality, outcomes, market share, patient satisfaction, cost, financial stability, and more. Revenue at Cass Health upon Altman’s arrival in Fiscal 2017 amounted to $45 million, a figure that will exceed $77 million in 2024. Outpatient visits numbered 55,000 in 2012; Cass Health will top 140,000 outpatient visits in 2024.
“We have worked to simplify our goals to reside under five pillars,” Altman says, listing those categories as service, growth, finances, people, and quality. “We focus the least on finance because when you’re intent on improving the other four pillars, the finances take care of themselves. Our success is based on the incredible culture our team has built; I can’t say enough good about them.”
“Coach Baxter said, ‘I didn’t want to tell you this, but I didn’t think you had a chance, that kid was a three-time state champ from Illinois.’”
-Brett Altman, 1988 BV graduate remembering Coach Al Baxter's statement
Altman took a nontraditional path to CEO at Cass Health. Prior to his move to Atlantic, he and his wife, Sarah, and their four children resided in Newton, where he served as Director of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation for Skiff Medical Center, then entered administrative roles for the hospital, eventually fulfilling the CEO role for the last three years of their time in Jasper County. Beginning in 2019, Altman has been lauded annually by Becker’s Hospital Review as being one of the “Rural Hospital CEOs to Know.”
His background is in Physical Therapy, having earned a master’s degree in physical therapy from the University of Iowa and a doctorate from Temple University. He would add an executive MBA from Grand Canyon University in later years.
“I was a biology major at Buena Vista,” he says, noting he’s one of three Altman siblings to graduate (brother, Scott ’85, and sister, Karla Cazett ’90). As a senior at Gilmore City-Bradgate High School, he remembers meeting Coach Al Baxter, who made a trip to Gilmore City to see a senior wrestler. It wasn’t Altman.
“Coach Baxter came up the high school stairs and I was expecting him to be coming for me as a two-time state qualifier and medal winner,” Altman says with a laugh. “He looked at me and asked where one of my classmates, state champion Dave Tool (who also attended BV) was at the time.”
Altman matriculated to BV and wrestled for Baxter’s Beavers. He won his first match as a freshman, 7-6, against a wrestler from Drake University. “I did a standing switch in the closing seconds to get the win,” he remembers. “Coach Baxter said, ‘I didn’t want to tell you this, but I didn’t think you had a chance, that kid was a three-time state champ from Illinois.’”
Altman added, “I figured wrestling in college wasn’t going to be so hard, as that had to be one of the toughest wrestlers I was going to face. And then I lost my next 10 matches!”
As a biology major, Altman traveled to various parts of the U.S. with Professor Emeritus Dr. Rick Lampe ’69, his advisor, savoring experiential learning endeavors that, in addition to research, would involve studying desert biology in Arizona and snorkeling in the Florida Keys during a marine biology trip. Mammalogy was his favorite course and if he didn’t get accepted into physical therapy school, his alternative was to attend Fort Hayes State University in Kanas to get a Ph.D. studying mammals.
He job-shadowed Physical Therapists (and BV graduates) Kit (Rasmussen) Munden ’81 and Gary Debner ’74 at Storm Lake Sports Rehab. He also served as a Resident Advisor, on Student Senate, Student Activities Board, and added an education minor, an experience that culminated with a student-teaching experience at nearby Odebolt-Arthur High School.
His 20-year career as a Physical Therapist and Certified Athletic Trainer in Storm Lake and then in Newton proved beneficial as he transitioned into hospital administration. “It is a big advantage knowing what it’s like to lay hands on a patient, having to document in the medical record, and demonstrate ‘knock your socks off’ service,” says Altman, who maintains a visible presence and walks the hospital daily to greet patients, check census totals, visit with staff, and troubleshoot, as needed.
Mainly, he oversees Cass County’s largest employer, which features more than 80 providers among 425 employees, recruiting medical professionals, networking with leaders across the state, and facility planning as a means to increase access for services while improving care. Altman currently works on Cass Health’s second facility expansion in five years, following a $20 million remodel from 2020-2022.
“We like to say that we do everything but heart and brain surgery here,” Altman says. “We do cancer care really well and have the Tyler Family Cancer Center. We have a full optometry practice, a dental office, and a retail pharmacy. We have two outstanding orthopedic surgeons and an ear, nose, and throat doctor we hired out of Des Moines. We have more than 55 specialist providers as well as a couple of dozen primary care providers.”
In 2023, the State of Iowa awarded Cass Health a Rural Hospital Center of Excellence Grant as well as a Healthcare Apprenticeship Grant (the first and only in the state) to train up to 70 new nurses throughout the next three years. Governor Kim Reynolds also tapped Altman to represent healthcare for the past two years as a spokesperson in the public hearing portion of the state budget.
The Altman family joined daughter, Abby, in Uganda, Africa in 2022 and spent a couple of weeks on a safari while also getting to know some of the people Abby serves in her missionary work. It has the Buena Vista alumnus excited for his future, and grateful he kept up his licensure in physical therapy and athletic training the last several years as he hopes to do some mission work post-retirement.
“At some point, I could see myself serving as a medical missionary in Central or South America,” he says.
Until then, there is plenty of work remaining at Cass Health. Work he adores.
“Our goal is to become the best rural hospital in the country and while we aren’t perfect, and never will be, we strive for perfection every day,” he says.