In communities throughout the Coastal Bend, ready access to care is one of the leading determinants of health across one’s lifespan. Since 2021, Teri Moffitt Cardenas has served as CEO for Physicians Premier, striving toward its mission to provide the most efficient, compassionate and patient-centered emergency care. A servant and advocate in the healthcare industry for over 30 years, Cardenas has made a career of listening to the needs of patients, practicing physicians and other healthcare professionals, and the community overall.
Growing up in the Memorial area of Houston, she recalls the thread of ambition among her peers, as well as what her parents instilled in her. Her father worked in the finance sector as an entrepreneur while her mother worked reception for big-name accounting firms. Her earliest work experience in high school looked like painstaking, manual entry of general ledgers and accounts receivable at her dad’s office. “My father had a lot of impact on me,” Cardenas said. “It was good for me from that perspective, being responsible and accountable. It gave me a really sound foundation to go into the jobs I went into.”
Her own ambitions led her to earn a bachelor’s degree of science in communications from The University of Texas at Austin in 1988. After fighting through the economic downturn of the late ’80s, she accepted a fundraising and development position with March of Dimes, where she came to learn more about the power of networking and resource allocation.
Cardenas credits being young and unintimidated by the concept of “no” as enabling her to ask for more from those who had resources to share. “Maybe part of it was that I was young and didn’t know better, but I thought, ‘I’m ready to do it, I’m gonna do it!’” she recalled. “I would go through the list of [donors], and I’d go, ‘Why are they only giving us $2,000? Why don’t we ask for $50,000?’”
It was through this spirit of optimism and opportunism that Cardenas found her knack for developing relationships. She found herself hosting events with Houston’s CEOs and raising millions for her foundation, as well as garnering professional connections she maintains today.
Shifting from the role of asking to giving, she moved into leadership in healthcare administration, starting with Houston hospital systems and later to a vice president position with Baptist Health System in San Antonio. A capable leader, she faced new hardships in the healthcare sector, including securing limited funds for hospitals as a whole. Despite competing for funds among institutions, Cardenas emphasized it was always important to her to keep good relationships with her counterparts in other systems, something that proved a key factor of success throughout her career.
Cardenas went on to earn her MBA in healthcare management from Marylhurst University in 2010. After accepting a position as executive director of business development with Christus Spohn, she moved to the Coastal Bend and continued doing what she does best: making connections and becoming an active community member.
When she was invited to interview with Physicians Premier in 2021, she did so under the impression it was for a business development role. Only after the intensive first round of interviews did the hiring panel of active board members and physicians inform her that she was a candidate for Chief Executive Officer. Cardenas recalls explaining to the panel that she felt unqualified for the job. In this moment of self-doubt, she called a meeting with her closest girlfriends—many of whom held high-power positions in their own fields—who reassured her of her talents and value, reflecting her own worth back to her as only trusted friends and colleagues can.
Cardenas persevered through the arduous interview process and went on to take up the mantle as CEO with a strong sense of duty. “I took [the position of CEO] with a lot of thoughtful consideration of how I wanted to approach it,” she said. “I felt the need to ensure that our patients get to feel that vision and mission all the time. We do that with the highest quality, with terrific people, with upkept facilities and our core values.”
As a healthcare industry leader and advocate in the Coastal Bend, Cardenas has used her position and expansive network to champion the cause of bringing quality healthcare and retaining practitioners within the community. In an industry riddled with burnout, she extends the values of the organizational mission to the professionals who make it possible.
“I’ve always been a supporter of working in environments where organizations want to give back,” she said. “It’s important to care for people where they’re at. If you want to have the kind of organization that does care about excellence, you really have to be committed to your people and knowing that they’re humans. How do we help people through tough times? How do we help people when they say ‘I need a break’? We have to give some humanity—we have to care.”
In addition to her husband Luis, two large Labrador puppies and drives home over the JFK Causeway, being “Teri” all the time is integral to keeping work and life in balance. “I’m very present and visible in this company, but there’s a balance to that,” she explained. “I think for me, it has to be authentic and natural. If I am not this [myself] 24/7, I don’t think I’d be able to be successful. I am really true to my belief system.”
